
) UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA 

( STUDIES IN 

j LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CRITICISM 

} Number 2 



ASTRONOMICAL LORE IN CHAUCER 



BY 



FLORENCE M. GRIMM, A'. M. 

Assistant in the University of 
Nebraska Library 



EDITORIAL COMMITTEE 

Louise Pound, Ph. D., Department of English 

H. B. Alexander, Ph. D., Department of Philosophy 
F. W. Sanford, A. B., Department of Latin. 



LINCOLN 
19 19 



/ 



UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA 

STUDIES IN 

LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CRITICISM 

Number 2 



ASTRONOMICAL LORE IN CHAUCER 



BY 

FLORENCE M. GRIMM, A. M. 

Assistant in the University of 
Nebraska Library 



EDITORIAL COMMITTEE 

Louise Pound, Ph. D., Department of English 

H. B. Alexander, Ph. D., Department of Philosophy 
F. W. Sanford, A. B., Department of Latin. 



LINCOLN 
19 19 



< 



CONTENTS 

I. Astronomy in the Middle Ages 3 

II. Chaucer's Scientific Knowledge 9 

III. Chaucer's Cosmology 12 

IV. Chaucer's Astronomy ...27 

V. Astrological Lore in Chaucer 51 

Appendix 79 

»: •* d- 

JUN 18 1919 



ASTRONOMICAL LORE IN CHAUCER 



Astronomy in the Middle Ages 

The conspicuousness of astronomical lore in the poetry 
of Chaucer is due to its importaRce iR the life of his cen- 
tury. Ir the mediaeval period, astroRomy (or 'astrology,' 
for the two Rames were used iRdiffereRtly to cover the same 
subject) was ORe of the vital iRterests of meR. The or- 
diRary man of the Middle Ages knew much more thaR do 
most meR to-day about the pheRomeRa of the heaveRs; 
coRveRieRces such as clocks, almauacs, aRd charts represeRt- 
iRg celestial pheRomena were rare, aRd direct observa- 
tioRS of the appareRt movemeRts aRd the relative posi- 
tioRS of the heaveRly bodies were Recessary for the regula- 
tioR of niaR's daily occupatious. Furthermore, the belief 
iu a geoceRtric system of the uuiverse, which iR Chaucer's 
ceutury was almost URiversally accepted, was of vast sig- 
RificaRce iR man's way of thhikiRg. AcceptiRg this view, 
all the heaveRly bodies seemed to have beeR created for 
the sole beRefit of maR, iRhabitiRg the ceRtral positioR 
iR the uuiverse; their movemeRts, always with refereRce 
to the earth as a ceRter, brought to maR light, heat, chaRges 
of seasoR — all the conditioRS that made humaR life possible 
or the earth. 

Not ORly did the maR of the Middle Ages see iR the regu- 
lar movemeRts of the celestial spheres the iRstrumeuts by 
which God graRted him physical existeRce, but iu the 
various aspects of heaveRly pheRomeRa he saw the goverR- 
iRg priRciples of his moral life. The arraRgemeRt of the 
heaveRly bodies with regard to ORe aRother at various 
times was supposed to exert undoubted power over the 
course of terrestial eveuts. Each plaRet was thought to 
have special attributes aud a special hiflueRce over meR's 



4 Studies in Language and Literature 

lives. Venus was the planet of love, Mars, of war and 
hostility, the sun, of power and honor, and so forth. 
Each was mysteriously connected with a certain color, 
with a metal, too, the alchemists said, and each had special 
power over some organ of the human body. The planet's 
influence was believed to vary greatly according to its 
position in the heavens, so that to determine a man's 
destiny accurately it was necessary to consider the aspect of 
the whole heavens, especially at the moment of his birth, 
but also at other times. This was called "casting the horo- 
scope" and was regarded as of great importance in enabling 
a man to guard against threatening perils or bad tendencies, 
and to make the best use of favorable opportunities. 

It is not astonishing, then, that the great monuments 
of literature in the mediaeval period and even much later 
are filled with astronomical and astrological allusions; for 
these are but reflections of vital human interests of the 
times. The greatest poetical work of the Middle Ages, 
Dante's Divina Commedia, is rich in astronomical lore, 
and its dramatic action is projected against a cosmograph- 
ical background reflecting the view of Dante's contempo- 
raries as to the structure of the world. Milton, writing 
in the seventeenth century, bases the cosmology of his 
Paradise Lost in the main on the Ptolemaic system, but 
makes Adam and the archangel Raphael discuss the relative 
merits of this system and the heliocentric view of the uni- 
verse. The latter had been brought forth by Copernicus a 
century earlier, but even in Milton's day had not yet suc- 
ceeded in supplanting the old geocentric cosmology. 

The view of the universe which we find reflected in 
Chaucer's poetry is chiefly based on the Ptolemaic system 
of astronomy, though it shows traces of very much more 
primitive cosmological ideas. The Ptolemaic system owes 
its name to the famous Alexandrian astronomer of the 
second century A. D., Claudius Ptolemy, but is based largely 
on the works and discoveries of the earlier Greek phil- 
osophers and astronomers, especially Eudoxus, Hipparchus, 
and Aristarchus, whose investigations Ptolemy compiled 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 5 

and, along some lines, extended. Ptolemaic astronomy was 
a purely geometrical or mathematical system which repre- 
sented the observed movements and relative positions of the 
heavenly bodies so accurately that calculations as to their 
positions at any given time could be based upon it. Ptolemy 
agreed with his contemporaries in the opinion that to assign 
causes for the celestial movements was outside the sp\ere 
of the astronomer. This was a proper field of philosophy ; 
and the decisions of philosophers, especially those of Aris- 
totle, were regarded as final, and their teaching as the basis 
upon which observed phenomena should be described. 

According to the Ptolemaic system the earth is a 
motionless sphere fixed at the center of the universe. It 
can have no motion, for there must be some fixed point 
in the universe to which all the motions of the heavenly 
bodies may be referred; if the earth had motion, it was 
argued, this would be proportionate to the great mass of 
the earth and would cause objects and animals to fly off 
into the air and be left behind. Ptolemy believed this 
reason sufficient to make untenable the idea of a rotatory 
motion of the earth, although he was fully aware that to sup- 
pose such a motion of the earth would simplify exceedingly 
the representations of the celestial movements. It did 
not occur to him that to suppose the earth's atmosphere 
to participate in its motion would obviate this difficulty. 
The earth was but a point in comparison with the immerne 
sphere to which the stars were attached and which revolved 
about the earth once in every twenty-four hours, impart- 
ing its motion to sun, moon, and planets, thus causing day 
and night and the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies. 
The irregular motions of the planets were accounted for by 
supposing them to move on circles of small spheres called 
'epicycles', the centres of which moved around the 'defer- 
ents', or circles of large spheres which carried the planets 
in courses concentric to the star sphere. By giving each of 
the planets an epicycle and deferent of the proper relative 
size and velocity the varied oscillations of the planets, as 
far as they could be followed by means of the simple in- 
struments then in use, were almost perfectly accounted for. 



6 Studies in Language and Literature 

Though it was a purely mathematical system which 
only attempted to give a basis for computing celestial mo- 
tions, Ptolemaic astronomy is of great importance histor- 
ically as it remained the foundation of theoretical astron- 
omy for more than 1400 years. Throughout the long dark 
centuries of the Middle Ages it survived in the studies of 
the retired students of the monasteries and of the few ex- 
ceptionally enlightened men who still had some regard for 
pagan learning in the days when many of the Church 
Fathers denounced it as heretical. 

Ptolemy was the last of the great original Greek astron- 
omers. The Alexandrian school produced, after him, only 
copyists and commentators, and the theoretical astron- 
omy of the Greeks, so highly perfected in Ptolemy's Almc^- 
gest, was for many centuries almost entirely neglected. The 
Roman State gave no encouragement to the study of the- 
oretical astronomy and produced no new school of astron- 
omy. Although it was the fashion for a Roman to have 
a smattering of Greek astronomy, and famous Latin authors 
like Cicero, Seneca, Strabo and Pliny wrote on astronomy, 
yet the Romans cared little for original investigations and 
contributed nothing new to the science. The Romans, how- 
ever, appreciated the value of astronomy in measuring time, 
and applied to the Alexandrian school to satisfy their prac- 
tical need for a calendar. What Julius Caesar obtained 
from the Alexandrian Sosigenes, he greatly improved and 
gave to the Empire, as the calendar which, with the excep- 
tion of the slight change made by Gregory XIII, we still use. 

The pseudo-astronomical science of astrology, or the 
so-called 'judicial astronomy' was pursued during the Ro- 
man Empire and throughout the Middle Ages with much 
greater zeal than theoretical astronomy. The interest in 
astrology, to be sure, encouraged the study of observational 
astronomy to a certain extent ; for the casting of horoscopes 
to foretell destinies required that the heavenly bodies be 
observed and methods of calculating their positions at any 
time or place be known. But there was no desire to in- 
quire into the underlying laws of the celestial motions or to 
investigate the real nature of the heavenly phenomena. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 7 

If the Roman State did not encourage astronomy, the 
Roman Church positively discouraged it. The Bible be- 
came and long remained the sole authority recognized by 
the Church Fathers as to the constitution of the universe. 
By many of the Patristics Ptolemaic astronomy was de- 
spised; not because it did not describe accurately the ob- 
served phenomena of the heavens, for it did this in a way 
that could scarcely have been improved upon with the facil- 
ities for observation then available ; and not because it was 
founded upon the false assumption that the earth is the 
motionless center of the universe about which all heavenly 
bodies revolve ; but because there was no authority in Scrip- 
ture for such a system, and it could not possibly be made 
consistent with the cosmology of Genesis. Allegorical de- 
scriptions of the universe based on the Scriptures held al- 
most complete sway over the mediaeval mind. The whole uni- 
verse was represented allegorically by the tabernacle and 
its furniture. The earth was flat and rectangular like the 
table of shew bread, and surrounded on all four sides by the 
ocean. The walls of heaven beyond this supported the firm- 
ament shaped like a half -cylinder. Angels moved the sun, 
moon, and stars across the firmament and let down rain 
through its windows from the expanse of water above. 

By no means all of the early Church Fathers were 
wholly without appreciation of the fruits of Greek astron- 
omical science. Origen and Clement of Alexandria, while 
believing in the scriptural allegories, tried to reconcile 
them with the results of pagan learning. In the West, 
Ambrose of Milan and later Augustine, were at least not 
opposed to the idea of the earth's sphericity, and of the ex- 
istence of antipodes, although they could not get away 
from the queer notion of the waters above the firmament. 
A few enlightened students like Philoponus of Alexandria, 
Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, and Irish scholars 
like Fergil and Dicuil, studied the Greek philosophers and 
accepted some of the pagan scientific teachings. 

Fortunately the study of those ancient Latin writers 
whose works had preserved some of the astronomy of the 



8 Studies in Language and Literature 

Greeks had taken firm root among the patient scholars of 
the monasteries, and slowly but steadily the geocentric sys- 
tem of cosmology was making its way back into the realm 
of generally accepted fact, so that by the ninth century it 
was the system adopted by nearly all scholars. 

About the year 1000 began the impetus to learning 
which culminated in the great revival of the Renaissance. 
One cause of this intellectual awakening was the contact 
of Europe with Arab culture through the crusades and 
through the Saracens in Sicily and the Moors in Spain. 
The Arabian influence resulted in an increased sense of 
the importance of astronomy and astrology; for, while 
the scholars of the Christian world had been devising 
allegorical representations of the world based on sacred 
literature, the Arabian scholars had been delving into Greek 
science, translating Ptolemy and Aristotle, and trying to 
make improvements upon Ptolemaic astronomy. The 
spheres of the planets, which Ptolemy had almost certainly 
regarded as purely symbolical, the Arabs conceived as hav- 
ing concrete existence. This made it necessary to add a 
ninth sphere to the eight mentioned by Ptolemy ; for it was 
thought sufficient that the eighth sphere should carry the 
stars and give them their slow movement of precession from 
west to east. This ninth sphere was the outermost of all 
and it originated the "prime motion'* by communicating 
to all the inner spheres its diurnal revolution from east to 
west. In mediaeval astronomy it came to be known as the 
primum mobile or "first movable," while a tenth and motion- 
less sphere was added as the abode of God and redeemed 
souls. The sun and moon were included among the planets, 
which revolved about the earth in the order Moon, Mer- 
cury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. 

At first the astronomy taught in the universities was 
based on Latin translations of Arabic commentaries and 
paraphrases of Aristotle, which had made their way into 
Aristotle represented in the eyes of most scholastics "the 
last possibility of wisdom and learning." But by the middle 
Europe through the Moors in Spain. For several centuries 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 9 

of the thirteenth century Ptolemy began to be rediscovered. 
The Ptolemaic system of planetary motions was briefly de- 
scribed in a handbook compiled by John Halifax of Holy- 
wood, better known as Sacrobosco. Roger Bacon wrote on 
the spheres, the use of the astrolabe, and astrology, follow- 
ing Ptolemy in his general ideas about the universe. The 
great mediaeval scholar and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, 
was also familiar with the Ptolemaic system ; but to most of 
the men of the thirteenth century Ptolemy's works remained 
quite unknown. The real revival of Greek astronomy took 
place in the fourteenth century when scholars began to 
realize that new work in astronomy must be preceded by a 
thorough knowledge of the astronomy of the Alexandrian 
school as exhibited in the Syntaxis of Ptolemy. It was 
then that Greek and Latin manuscripts of works on as- 
tronomy began to be eagerly sought for and deciphered, 
and a firm foundation constructed for the revival of theo- 
retical astronomy. 

II 

Chaucer's Scientific Knowledge 

It was in the fourteenth century that Chaucer lived and 
wrote, and his interest in astronomical lore is, therefore, 
not surprising. Although the theories of astronomy cur- 
rent in Chaucer's century have been made untenable by the 
Be Revolutionibus Orbium of Copernicus, and by Kepler's 
discovery of the laws of planetary motion; although the 
inaccurate and unsatisfactory methods of astronomical in- 
vestigation then in use have been supplanted by the better 
methods made possible through Galileo's invention of the 
telescope and through the modern use of spectrum analysis ; 
yet, of all scientific subjects, the astronomy of that period 
could most nearly lay claim to the name of science accord- 
ing to the present acceptation of the term. For, as we 
have seen, the interest in astrology during the Middle Ages 
had fostered the study of observational astronomy, and this 



10 Studies in Language and Literature 

in turn had furnished the science a basis of fact and obser- 
vation far surpassing in detail and accuracy that of any 
other subject. 

Practically all of Chaucer's writings contain some re- 
ference to the movements and relative positions of the 
heavenly bodies, and to their influence on human and mun- 
dane affairs, and in some of his works, especially the 
treatise on The Astrolabe, a very technical and detailed 
knowledge of astronomical and astrological lore is dis- 
played. There is every reason to suppose that, so far as 
it satisfied his purposes, Chaucer had made himself familiar 
with the whole literature of astronomical science. His 
familiarity with Ptolemaic astronomy is shown in his writ- 
ings both by specific mention 1 / of the name of Ptolemy and his 
Syntaxis, commonly known as the 'Almagest,' and by many 
more general astronomical references. 

Even more convincing evidence of Chaucer's knowledge 
of the scientific literature of his time is given in his Treatise 
on the Astrolabe. According to Skeat, Part I and at least 
two-thirds of Part II are taken, with some expansion and 



1 The name of Ptolemy occurs once in The Somnours Tale (D. 
2289) : 

"As wel as Euclide or (as) Ptholomee." 
and once in The Astrolabe, I. 17.6: 

"whiche declinacioun, aftur Ptholome, is 23 degrees and 50 
minutes, as wel in Cancer as in Capricorne." 

The Almagest is mentioned in The Miller es Tale (A.3208) : 

"His Almageste and bokes grete and smale," 

Twice in The Wif of Bathes Prologue occur both the name of the 
Almagest and that of its author: 

" 'Who-so that nil be war by othere men, 
By him shul othere men corrected be. 
The same wordes wryteth Ptholomee ; 
Rede in his Almageste, and take it there.' " 
(D. 180-183) 
"Of alle men y-blessed moot he be, 
The wyse astrologien Dan Ptholome, 
That seith this proverbe in his Almageste, 
'Of alle men his wisdom is the hyeste, 
That rekketh never who hath the world in honde.' " 
(D. 323-327) 
Professor Lounsbury (Studies in Chaucer, ii p. 186 and pp. 396-7) 
has difficulty in explaining why Chaucer makes the Wife of Bath 
attribute these moral maxims to Ptolemy. He is inclined to think 
that Chaucer, so to speak, was napping when he put these utter- 
ances into the mouth of the Wife of Bath; yet elsewhere he acknow- 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 11 

alteration, from a work on the Astrolabe by Messahala 1 , 
called, in the Latin translation which Chaucer used, "Com- 
positio et Operatio Astrolabie." This work may have been 
ultimately derived from a Sanskrit copy, but from Chaucer's 
own words in the Prologue to the Astrolabe 2 it is clear that 
he made use of the Latin work. The rest of Part II may 
have been derived from some general compendium of astro- 
nomical and astrological knowledge, or from some other of 
the treatises on the Astrolabe which Chaucer says were 
common in his time. 3 

Other sources mentioned by Chaucer in The Astrolabe 
are the calendars of John Some and Nicholas Lynne, Car- 
melite friars who wrote calendars constructed for the mer- 
idian of Oxford^; and of the Arabian astronomer Abdilazi 
Alkabucius. 5 In The Frankeleyns Tale Chaucer mentions 
the Tabulae Toletanae, a set of tables composed by order of 

ledges that the supposition of confused memory on Chaucer's part in 
this case is hard to reconcile with the knowledge he elsewhere dis- 
plays of Ptolemy's work. I think it very probable that Chaucer's 
seeming slip here is deliberate art. The Wife of Bath is one of 
Chaucer's most humorous creations and the blunders he here at- 
tributes to her are quite in keeping with her character. From her 
fifth husband, who was a professional scholar and a wide reader, 
she has picked up a store of scattered and incomplete information 
about books and names, and she loses no opportunity for displaying 
it. At any rate, whether or not Chaucer had read the Almagest in 
translation, his many cosmological and astronomical references show 
clearly his acquaintance with the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. 

*An Arabian scholar of the eighth century. 

2 1.18 ff. "This tretis, divided in fyve parties, wole I shewe thee 
under ful lighte rewles and naked wordes in English; for Latin ne 
canstow yit but smal, my lyte sone." 

3 And Lowis, yif so be that I shewe thee in my lighte English 
as trewe conclusiouns touching this matere, and naught only as trewe 
but as many and as subtil conclusiouns as ben shewed in Latin in any 
commune tretis of the Astrolabie, con me the more thank;" Prologue 
to the Astrolabe, 35-39. 

4 Skeat, Notes on the Astrolabe, Prologue, 62 "Warton says 
that 'John Some and Nicholas Lynne' were both Carmelite friars, 
and wrote calendars constructed for the meridian of Oxford. He adds 
that Nicholas Lynne is said to have made several voyages to the 
most northerly parts of the world, charts of which he presented to 
Edward III. These charts are, however, lost." 

$The Astrolabe, I. 8,9. According to Warton the work in question 
is an introduction to judicial astronomy. (Lounsbury, II. 398.) 

6 F. 1273. "His tables Toletanes forth he broght," 



12 Studies in Language and Literature 

Alphonso X, king of Castile, and so called because they 
were adapted to the city of Toledo. Works which served 
Chaucer not as sources of information on scientific subjects 
but as models for the treatment of astronomical lore in 
literature were the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boe- 
thius, which Chaucer translated and often made use of in 
his poetry; and the works of Dante, whose influence on 
Chaucer, probably considerable, has been pointed out by 
several writers, notably Rambeau 1 who discusses the par- 
allels between The Hous of Fame and the Divina Commedia. 

Ill 

Chaucer's Cosmology 

Chaucer wrote no poetical work having a cosmogra- 
phical background as completely set forth as is that in 
Dante's Divine Comedy or that in Milton's Paradise Lost. 
Although his cosmological references are often incidental 
they are not introduced in a pedantic manner. Whenever 
they are not parts of interpolations from other writers his 
use of them is due to their intimate relation to the life 
his poetry portrays or to his appreciation of their poetic 
value. When Chaucer says, for example, that the sun has 
grown old and shines in Capricorn with a paler light than 
is his wont, he is not using a merely conventional device 
for showing that winter has come, but is expressing this fact 
in truly poetic manner and in words quite comprehensible 
to the men of his day, who were accustomed to think of 
time relations in terms of heavenly phenomena. 

Popular and scientific views of the universe in 
Chaucer's century were by no means the same. The un- 
taught man doubtless still thought of the earth as being 
fiat, as it appears to be, as bounded by the waters of the 
ocean,and as covered by a dome-like material firmament 
through which the waters above sometimes came as rain; 

1 Englische Studien III 209. See also J. S. P. Tatlock, "Chaucer 
and Dante," in Modern Philology, III, 367. 1905, 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 13 

while, as we have seen, by the fourteenth century among 
scholars the geocentric system of astronomy was firmly 
established and the spheres and epicycles of Ptolemy were 
becoming more widely known. It is the view held by the 
educated men of his century that Chaucer's poetry chiefly 
reflects. 

1. The Celestial Spheres and their Movements 

When we read Chaucer we are transported into a world 
in which the heavenly bodies and their movements seem to 
bear a more intimate relation to human life than they do 
in the world in which we live. The thought of the revol- 
ving spheres carrying sun, moon, and planets, regulating 
light and heat on the earth, and exercising a mysterious 
influence over terrestrial events and human destiny was 
a sublime conception and one that naturally appealed to 
the imagination of a poet. Chaucer was impressed alike 
by the vastness of the revolving spheres in comparison to 
the earth's smallness, by their orderly arrangement, and 
by the unceasing regularity of their appearance which 
seemed to show that they should eternally abide. In the 
Parlement of Foules he interpolates a passage from Cicero's 
Somnium Scipionis in which Africanus appears to the 
sleeping Scipio, points out to him the insignificance of our 
little earth when compared with the vastness of the heavens 
and then admonishes him to regard the things of this 
world as of little importance when compared with the joys 
of the heavenly life to come. 1 

"Than shewed he him the litel erthe, that heer is, 
At regard of the hevenes quantite; 
And after shewed he him the nyne speres." 

The regular arrangement of the planetary spheres 
clings often to the poet's fancy and he makes many allusions 
to their order in the heavens. He speaks of Mars as "the 
thridde hevenes lord above" 2 and of Venus as presiding over 

1 Parle / rnent of Foules, 57-59. 
2 Compleynt of Mars, 29. 



14 Studies in Language and Literature 

the "fifte cercle." 1 In Troilus and Criseyde the poet invokes 
Venus as the adorning light of the third heaven. 2 

"0 blisful light, of which the bemes clere 
Adorn eth al the thridde hevene faire! 3 

Mediaeval astronomers as we have seen, imagined 
nine spheres, each of the seven innermost carrying with 
it one of the planets in the order mentioned below; the 
eighth sphere was that of the fixed stars, and to account for 
the precession of the equinoxes, men supposed it to have 
a slow motion from west to east, round the axis of the 
zodiac; the ninth or outermost sphere they called the 
primum mobile, or the sphere of first motion, and supposed 
it to revolve daily from east to west, carrying all the other 
spheres with it. The thought of the two outer spheres, 
the primum mobile, whirling along with it all the inner 
spheres, and the firmament, bearing hosts of bright stars, 
seems to have appealed strongly to the poet's imagination. 
In the Tale of the Man of Laive the primum mobile is de- 
scribed as crowding and hurling in diurnal revolution from 
east to west all the spheres that would naturally follow the 
slow course of the zodiac from west to east. 4 Elsewhere the 
primum mobile is called the "whele that bereth the sterres" 
and is said to turn the heavens with a "ravisshing sweigh:" 

"0 thou maker of the whele that bereth the sterres, 
which that art y-fastned to thy perdurable chayer, and 

1 Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan, 8-12. 

"By worde eterne whylom was hit shape 
That fro the fifte cercle, in no manere, 
Ne mighte a drope of teres doun escape. 
But now so wepeth Venus in hir spere, 
That with hir teres she wol drenche us here." 
2 Since Chaucer calls Mars the lord of the third heaven and else- 
where speaks of Venus as presiding over that sphere it is evident that 
he sometimes reckons from the earth outwards, and sometimes from 
the outer sphere of Saturn towards the earth. The regular order 
of the planets, counting from the earth, was supposed to be as follows: 
Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, making Mars the 
third from the last. 
3III. 1-2. 
4 "O firste moevyng cruel firmament, 

With thy diurnal sweigh that crowdest ay 
And hurlest al from Est til Occident, 
That naturelly wolde holde another way." 
(B. 295-8) 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 15 

tornest the hevene with a ravisshing sweigh, and constrein- 
est the sterres to suffren thy lawe;" 1 

The firmament, which in Chaucer is not restricted to 
the eighth sphere but generally refers to the whole expanse 
of the heavens, is many times mentioned by Chaucer; and 
its appearance on clear or cloudy nights, its changing as- 
pects before an impending storm or with the coming of 
dawn, beautifully described. 2 

2. The Harmony of the Spheres 

Some of the cosmological ideas reflected in Chaucer's 
writings can be traced back to systems older than the Ptole- 
maic. The beautiful fancy that the universe is governed 
by harmony had its origin in the philosophy of the Pythag- 
oreans in the fourth century B. C, and continued to appeal 
to men's imagination until the end of the Middle Ages. It 
was thought that the distances of the planetary spheres 
from one another correspond to the intervals of a musical 
scale and that each sphere as it revolves sounds one note 
of the scale. When asked why men could not hear the 
celestial harmony, the Pythagoreans said: A blacksmith 
is deaf to the continuous, regular beat of the hammers 
in his shop ; so we are deaf to the music which the spheres 
have been sending forth from eternity. 

In ancient and mediaeval cosmology it was only the 
seven spheres of the planets that were generally supposed 
to participate in this celestial music; but the poets have 

Chaucer does not use the term 'firmament' with sole reference 
to the star-sphere. Here it clearly refers to the primum mobile; it 
often applies to the whole expanse of the heavens. 

1 Boethius, Book I: Metre V, 1-4. The conception of God as 
the creator and unmoved mover of the universe originated in the 
philosophy of Aristotle, who was the one great authority, aside from 
Scripture and the Church Fathers, recognized by the Middle Ages. 
God's abode was thought to be in the Empyrean, the motionless sphere 
beyond the ninth, and the last heaven. This is the meaning in the 
reference to the eternal throne ("perdurable chayer") of God. 

2 Many of these beautiful descriptions, however, are not strictly 
Chaucer's own, since they occur in his translation of Boethius. It will 
suffice to quote one of these descriptions : 



16 Studies in Language and Literature 

taken liberties with this idea and have given it to us in 
forms suiting their own fancies. Milton bids all the celes- 
tial spheres join in the heavenly melody: 

"Ring out, ye crystal spheres, 
Once bless our human ears, 

If ye have power to touch our senses so ; 
And let your silver chime 
Move in melodious time, 

And let the base of heaven's deep organ blow ; 
And with your ninefold harmony, 
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony." 1 

Shakespeare lets every orb of the heavens send forth its 
note as it moves: 

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 

But in his motion like an angel sings, 

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ;" 2 

Chaucer, too, makes all nine spheres participate : 

"And after that the melodye herde he 
That cometh of thilke speres thryes three, 
That welle is of musyke and melodye 
In this world heer, and cause of armonye." 3 

Only in unusual circumstances can the music of the 
spheres be heard by mortal ears. In the lines just quoted 
the celestial melody is heard during a dream or vision. 
In Troilus and Criseyde, after Troilus' death his spirit is 
borne aloft to heaven whence he beholds the celestial orbs 
and hears the melody sent forth as they revolve: 

"And, right by ensaumple as the sonne is hid whan the sterres 
ben clustred {that is to seyn, whan sterres ben covered with cloudes) 
by a swifte winde that highte Chorus, and that the firmament stant 
derked by wete ploungy cloudes, and that the sterres nat apperen 
up-on hevene, so that the night semeth sprad up-on erthe: yif thanne 
the wind that highte Borias, y-sent out of the caves of the contres of 
Trace, beteth this night (that is to seyn, chaseth it a-wey) , and 
descovereth the closed day: than shyneth Phebus y-shaken with sodein 
light, and smyteth with his bemes in mervelinge eyen." 
(Boethius, Book I: Metre III. 3-12.) 

1 Hymn on the Nativity, XIII. 

2 The Merchant of Venice, Act. V. Sc. i. 

zParlement of Foules, 60-63. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 17 

"And ther he saugh, with ful avysement, 
The erratik sterres, herkeninge armonye 
With sownes f ulle of hevenish melodye. 1 

3. The Cardinal Points and the Regions of the World 

More primitive in origin than the harmony of the 
spheres are references to the four elements, to the divis- 
ions of the world, and to the cardinal points or quarters 
of the earth. Of these, probably the most primitive is 
the last. The idea of four cardinal points, the "before," 
the "behind," the "right," and the "left," later given the 
names North, South, East, and West, appears among 
peoples in their very earliest stages of civilization, and be- 
cause of its great usefulness has remained and probably 
will remain throughout the history of the human race. 
Only one of Chaucer's many references to the cardinal points 
need be mentioned. In the Man of Lawes Tale (B.491ff.) 
the cardinal points are first suggested by an allusion to the 
four 'spirits of tempest,' which were supposed to have 
their respective abodes in the four quarters of earth, and 
then specifically named in the lines following: 

"Who bad the foure spirits of tempest, 
That power han tanoyen land and see, 
'Bothe north and south, and also west and est, 
Anoyeth neither see, ne land, ne tree V " 

Of almost equal antiquity are ideas of the universe as 
a threefold world having heaven above, earth below, and 
a region of darkness and gloom beneath the earth. Chaucer 
usually speaks of the threefold world, the "tryne compas," 
as comprising heaven, earth and sea. Thus in the Knightes 
Tale: 2 

" '0 chaste goddesse of the wodes grene, 
To whom bothe hevene and erthe and see is sene, 
Quene of the regne of Pluto derk and lowe,' " 



1 Troilus and Criseyde, V. 1811-1813. 
2 A. 2297-9. 



18 Studies in Language and Literature 

Fame's palace is said to stand midway between heaven, 
earth and sea : 

"Hir paleys stant, as I shal seye, 
Right even in middes of the weye 
Betwixen hevene, erthe, and see j" 1 

Again in The Seconde Nonnes Tale, the name 'tryne 
compas' is used of the threefold world and the three regions 
are mentioned : 

"That of the tryne compas lord and gyde is, 
Whom erthe and see and heven, out of relees, 
Ay herien ;" 2 



4. Heaven, Hell and Purgatory 

In mediaeval cosmology ideas of heaven, hell, and pur- 
gatory, as more or less definitely located regions where the 
spirts of the dead were either rewarded or punished eter- 
nally, or were purged of their earthly sins in hope of future 
blessedness, play an important part. According to Dante's 
poetic conception hell was a conical shaped pit whose apex 
reached to the center of the earth, purgatory was a mountain 
on the earth's surface on the summit of which was located 
the garden of Eden or the earthly paradise, and heaven 
was a motionless region beyond space and time, the motion- 
less sphere outside of the primum mobile, called the Empy- 
rean. 

Chaucer's allusions to heaven, hell and Dureratorv are 
frequent but chiefly incidental and give no such definite 
idea of their location as we find in the Divine Comedy. The 
nearest Chaucer comes to indicating the place of heaven is 
in The Parlement of Foules, 55-6, where Africanus speaks 
of heaven and then points to the galaxy : 

"And rightful folk shal go, after they dye, 
To heven ; and shewed him the galaxye." 



1 Hous of Fame, ii. 713 ff. 
-Seconde Nonnes Tale, G. 45-47. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 19 

Chaucer describes heaven as "swift and round and 
burning", thus to some extent departing from the con- 
ception of it usually held in his time: 

"And right so as thise philosophres wryte 

That heven is swift and round and eek brenninge, 

Right so was fayre Cecilie the whyte." 1 / 

In using the terms "swift and round" Chaucer must 
have been thinking of the primum mobile which, as we have 
seen, was thought to have a swift diurnal motion from 
east to west. His use of the epithet "burning" is in con- 
formity with the mediaeval conception of the Empyrean, or 
heaven of pure light as it is described by Dante. 

Chaucer does not describe the form and location of 
hell as definitely as does Dante, but the idea which he 
presents of it by incidental allusions, whether or not this 
was the view of it he himself held, is practically the one 
commonly held in his day. That hell is located somewhere 
within the depths of the earth is suggested in the Knightes 
Tale; 2 — 

"His f elawe wente and soghte him down in helle ;" 

and in the Man of Lawes Tale;% 

'0 serpent under femininitee, 

Lyk to the serpent depe in helle y-bounde," 

In the Persones Tale hell is described as a horrible pit 
to which no natural light penetrates, filled with smoking 
flames and presided over by devils who await an oppor- 
tunity to draw sinful souls to their punishment. 4 Else- 
where in the same tale the parson describes hell as a 
region of disorder, the only place in the world not subject 
to the universal laws of nature, and attributes this idea 
of it to Job : 



i-The Seconde Nonnes Tale, G. 113-115. 
2A. 1200. 
SB. 300 ff. 

*The Persones Tale, I. 169 ff . : "ther shal the sterne and wrothe 
luge sitte above, and under him the horrible put of helle open to 



20 Studies in Language and Literature 

"And eek lob seith : that 'in helle is noon ordre 
of rule.' And al-be-it so that god hath creat alle 
thinges in right ordre, and no-thing with-outen 
ordre, but alle thinges been ordeyned and nom- 
bred; yet nathelees they that been dampned been 
no-thing in ordre, ne holden noon ordre." 1 

The word purgatory seldom occurs in a literal sense 
in Chaucer's poetry, but the figurative use of it is frequent. 
When the Wife of Bath is relating her experiences in 
married life she tells us that she was her fourth husband's 
purgatory. 2 The old man, Ianuarie 3 , contemplating mar- 
riage, fears that he may lose hope of heaven hereafter, 
because he will have his heaven here on earth in the joys of 
wedded life. His friend Iustinus sarcastically tells him 
that perhaps his wife will be his purgatory, God's instru- 
ment of punishment, so that when he dies his soul will skip 
to heaven quicker than an arrow from the bow. To Arcite, 
released from prison on condition that he never again enter 
Theseus' lands, banishment will be a worse fate than the 
purgatory of life imprisonment, for then even the sight of 
Emelye will be denied him: 

"He seyde, 'Alias that day that I was born ! 
Now is my prison worse than biforn; 
Now is me shape eternally to dwelle 
Noght in purgatorie, but in helle.' " 4 

The idea of purgatory, not as a place definitely 
located like Dante's Mount of Purgatory, but rather as a 
period of punishment and probation, is expressed in these 
lines from The Parlement of Foules (78-84) : 

destroyen him that moot biknowen hise sinnes, whiche sinnes openly- 
been shewed biforn god and biforn every creature. And on the left 
syde, mo develes than herte may bithinke, for to harie and drawe the 
sinful soules to the pyne of helle. And with-inne the hertes of folk 
shal be the bytinge conscience, and withoute-forth shal be the world 
al brenninge," 

iThe Persones Tale, I. 216-217. 

2 The Wife of Bath's Prologue, D. 489. 

$The Marchantes Tale, E. 1645 ff. 

*The Knightes Tale, A. 1224-7. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 21 

4 "But brekers of the la we, soth to seyne, 
And lecherous folk, after that they be dede, 
Shul alwey whirle aboute therthe in peyne, 
Til many a world be passed, out of drede, 
And than, for-yeven alle hir wikked dede, 
Than shul they come unto that blisf ul place, 
To which to comen god thee sende his grace V " 

Chaucer uses the idea of paradise for poetical pur- 
poses quite as often as that of purgatory. He expresses the 
highest degree of earthly beauty or joy by comparing it 
with paradise. Criseyde's face is said to be like the image 
of paradise. 1 Again, in extolling the married life, the poet 
says that its virtues are such 

" That in this world it is a paradys.' " 2 

And later in the same tale, woman is spoken of as 

"mannes help and his confort, 
His paradys terrestre and his disport." 3 

When Aeneas reaches Carthage he 

"is come to Paradys 
Out of the swolow of helle, and thus in Ioye 
Remembreth him of his estat in Troye." 4 

Chaucer mentions paradise several times in its literal 
sense as the abode of Adam and Eve before their fall. In 
the Monkes Tale we are told that Adam held sway over 
all paradise excepting one tree. 5 Again, the pardoner 
speaks of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise: 

"Adam our fader, and his wyf also, 
Fro Paradys to labour and to wo 
Were driven for that vyce, it is no drede ; 
For whyl that Adam fasted, as I rede, 



1 Troilus and Criseyde, Bk. IV. 864. 

2 Marchantes Tale, E. 1265. 

Hbid. E. 1331-1332. 

*The Legend of Good Women, III. 1103 ff. 

5 The Monkes Tale, B. 3200. 



22 Studies in Language and Literature 

He was in Paradys ; and whan that he 
Eet of the fruyt defended on the tree, 
Anon he was out-cast to wo and peyne." 1 

5. The Four Elements. 

The idea of four elements 2 has its origin in the attempts 
of the early Greek cosmologists to discover the ultimate 
principle of reality in the universe. 

Thales reached the conclusion that this principle was 
water, Anaximines, that it was air, and Heracleitus, fire, 
while Parmenides supposed two elements, fire or light, 
subtle and rarefied, and earth or night, dense and heavy. 
Empedocles of Agrigentum (about 450 B. C.) assumed as 
primary elements all four — fire, air, water, and earth — of 
which each of his predecessors had assumed only one or two. 
To explain the manifold phenomena of nature he supposed 
them to be produced by combinations of the elements in 
different proportions through the attractive and repulsive 
forces of 'love' and 'discord.' This arbitrary assumption 
of four elements, first made by Empedocles, persisted in 
the popular imagination throughout the Middle Ages and 
is, like other cosmological ideas of antiquity, sometimes 
reflected in the poetry of the time. 

The elements in mediaeval cosmology were assigned 
to a definite region of the universe. Being mortal and im- 
perfect they occupied four spheres below the moon, the ele- 
mental region or region of imperfection, as distinguished 
from the ethereal region above the moon. Immediately with- 
in the sphere of the moon came that of Fire, below this the 
Air, then Water, and lowest of all the solid sphere of Earth. 

±The Pardoneres Tale, C. 505-511. 

2 ln the time of Hamurabi, 2,000 years before Christ, the Chal- 
deans worshipped as beneficent or formidable powers, the Earth, 
that may give or refuse sustenance to man, the Waters that fertilize or 
devastate, the Winds that blow from the four quarters of the world, 
Fire that warms or devours and all forces of nature which, in their 
sidereal religion, they confounded with the stars, giving them the 
generic name of 'Elements.' But the system that recognizes only 
four elements as the original sources of all that exists in nature, 
was created by the Greek philosophers. 

See F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and 
Romans (1912), p. 33. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 23 

Fire being the most ethereal of the elements constantly 
tends to rise upward, while Earth sinks towards the center 
of the universe. This contrast is a favorite idea with Dante, 
who says in the Paradiso i. 112-117: 

" 'wherefore they move to diverse ports o'er the 

great sea of being, and each one with 

instinct given it to bear it on. 
This beareth the fire toward the moon; this 

is the mover in the hearts of things that die ; 

this doth draw the earth together and unite it.' " 

Elsewhere Dante describes the lightning as fleeing 
its proper place when it strikes the earth: 

" 'but lightning, fleeing its proper site, ne'er 
darted as dost thou who art returning thither.' ' n 

And again: 

" 'so from this course sometimes departeth the 

creature that hath power, thus thrust, to swerve 
to-ward some other part, 
(even as fire may be seen to dart down from 

the cloud) if its first rush be wrenched aside 
to earth by false seeming pleasure.' " 2 

The same thought of the tendency of fire to rise and 
of earth to sink is found in Chaucer's translation of Boe- 
thius : 3 

"Thou bindest the elements by noumbres pro- 

porcionables, that the fyr, that is purest, 

ne flee nat over hye, ne that the hevinesse ne drawe 
nat adoun over-lowe the erthes that ben plounged 
in the wateres." 

Chaucer does not make specific mention of the spheres 
of the elements, but he tells us plainly that each element 
has been assigned its proper region from which it may not 
escape : 

iFaradiso i. 92-93. 
^Paradiso i. 130-135. 
3 Book III.: Metre IX. 13 ff. 



24 Studies in Language and Literature 

"For with that faire cheyne of love he bond 
The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond 
In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee;" 1 

The position of the elements in the universe is never- 
theless made clear without specific reference to their res- 
pective spheres. The spirit of the slain Troilus ascends 
through the spheres to the seventh heaven, leaving behind 
the elements : 

"And whan that he was slayn in this manere, 
His lighte goost f ul blisfully is went 
Up to the holownesse of the seventh spere, 
In converse letinge every element." 2 
"Every element" here obviously means the sphere of each 
element; "holownesse" means concavity and "in convers" 
means 'on the reverse side.' The meaning of the passage 
is, then, that Troilus' spirit ascends to the concave side 
of the seventh sphere from which he can look down upon 
the spheres of the elements, which have their convex sur- 
faces towards him. This passage is of particular interest 
for the further reason that it shows that even in Chaucer's 
century people still thought of the spheres as having 
material existence. 

The place and order of the elements is more definitely 
suggested in a passage from Boethius in which philo- 
sophical contemplation is figuratively described as an ascent 
of thought upward through the spheres : 

" 'I have, forsothe, swifte fetheres that sur- 
mounten the heighte of hevene. When the swifte 
thought hath clothed it-self in the fetheres, it de- 
spyseth the hateful erthes, and surmounteth the 
roundnesse of the grete ayr; and it seeth the 
cloudes behinde his bak; and passeth the heighte 
of the region of the fyr, that eschaufeth by the 
swifte moevinge of the firmament, til that he arey- 
seth him in-to the houses that beren the sterres, 
and ioyneth his weyes with the sonne Phebus, and 
felawshipeth the wey of the olde colde Saturnus.' " 3 

^The Knightes Tale, A. 2991-3. 
-Troilus and Criseyde, V. 1807-10. 
^Boethius, Book IV; Metre I. 1 ff. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 25 

In this passage all the elemental regions except that of 
water are alluded to and in the order which, in the Middle 
Ages, they were supposed to follow. When in the Hous of 
Fame, Chaucer is borne aloft into the heavens by Jupiter's 
eagle, he is reminded of this passage in Boethius and alludes 
to it: 

"And tho thoughte I upon Boece, 

That writ, 'a thought may flee so hye, 

With fetheres of Philosophye, 

To passen everich element; 

And whan he hath so fer y-went, 

Than may be seen, behind his bak, 

Cloud, and al that I of spak.' m 

Empedocles, as we have seen, taught that the variety 
in the universe was caused by the binding together of the 
four elements in different proportions through the harmon- 
izing principle of love, or by their separation through hate, 
the principle of discord. We find this idea also reflected in 
Chaucer who obviously got it from Boethius. Love is the 
organizing principle of the universe; if the force of love 
should in any wise abate, all things would strive against 
each other and the universe be transformed into chaos. 2 

The elements were thought to be distinguished from 
one another by peculiar natures or attributes. Thus the 
nature of fire was hot and dry, that of water cold and moist, 

*The Hous of Fame, II. 972-978. 

Woethius, Book II. : Metre VIII. 1. 1 ff. 

"That the world with stable feith varieth acordable chaung- 
inges; that the contrarious qualitee of elements holden among hem- 
self aliaunce perdurable; — al this acordaunce of things 

is bounden with Love, that governeth erthe and see, and hath also 
commaundements to the hevenes. And yif this Love slakede the 
brydeles, alle things that now loven hem to-gederes wolden maken a 
bataile continuely, and stryven to fordoon the fasoun of this worlde, 
the whiche they now leden in acordable feith by faire moevinges." 

The thought of love as the harmonizing bond between diverse 
elements is dealt with more poetically in Troilus and Criseyde, Bk. III. 
1744-1757. 

" 'Love, that of erthe and see hath governaunce, 
Love, that his hestes hath in hevene hye, 



That that the world with feyth, which that is stable, 
Dyverseth so his stoundes concordinge, 



26 Studies in Language and Literature 

that of air cold and dry, and that of earth hot and moist. 1 
Chaucer alludes to these distinguishing attributes of the 
elements a number of times, as, for example, in Boethius, 
III, : Metre 9. 14 ff. : 

"Thou bindest the elements by noumbres 
proporciounables, that the colde thinges mowen 
acorden with the hote thinges, and the drye thinges 
with the moiste thinges" ; 

In conclusion it should be said that all creatures oc- 
cupying the elemental region or realm of imperfection 
below the moon were thought to have been created not dir- 
ectly by God but by Nature as his "vicaire" or deputy, or, in 
other words, by an inferior agency. Chaucer alludes to 
this in The Parlement of Foides briefly thus : 

"Nature, the vicaire of thalmyghty lorde, 

That hoot, cold, hevy, light, (and) moist and dreye 

Hath knit by even noumbre of acorde," 2 

and more at length in The Phisiciens Tale. Chaucer says 
of the daughter of Virginius that nature had formed her 
of such excellence that she might have said of her creation : 

" 'lo ! I, Nature, 
Thus can I forme and peynte a creature, 
Whan that me list; who can me countrefete? 
Pigmalion noght, though he ay forge and bete, 
Or grave, or peynte; for I dar wel seyn, 
Apelles, Zanzis, sholde werche in veyn, 
Outher to grave or peynte or forge or bete, 
If they presumed me to countrefete. 
For he that is the former principal 
Hath maked me his vicaire general, 
To forme and peynten erthely creaturis 
Eight as me list, and ech thing in my cure is 
Under the mone, that may wane and waxe, 

That elements that been so discordable 

Holden a bond perpetuely duringe. 

That Phebus mote his rosy day forth bringe, 

And that the mone hath lordship over the nightes, 

Al this doth Love; ay heried be his mightes !' " 

!Skeat, Notes to Boeth/ius, II.: Metre 9, 1. 14. 

2 H.379-381. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 27 

And for my werk right no-thing wol I axe; 
My lord and I ben f ul of oon accord ; 
I made hir to the worship of my lord.' ' n 

What is of especial interest for our purposes is found in 
the five lines of this passage beginning "For he that is 
the former principal," etc. "Former principal" means 
'creator principal' or the chief creator. God is the chief 
creator ; therefore there must be other or inferior creators. 
Nature is a creator of inferior rank whom God has made 
his "vicaire" or deputy and whose work it is to create and 
preside over all things beneath the sphere of the moon. 

IV 

Chaucer's Astronomy 

Chaucer's treatment of astronomical lore in his poetry 
differs much from his use of it in his prose writings. 
In poetical allusions to heavenly phenomena, much attention 
to detail and a pedantic regard for accuracy would be in- 
appropriate. References to astronomy in Chaucer's poetry 
are, as a rule rather brief, specific but not technical, often 
purely conventional but always truly poetic. There are, 
indeed, occasional passages in Chaucer's poetry showing 
so detailed a knowledge of observational 2 astronomy that 
they would seem astonishing and, to many people, out of 
place, in modern poetry. They were not so in Chaucer's 
time, when the exigencies of practical life demanded of the 
ordinary man a knowledge of astronomy far surpassing 
that possessed by most of our contemporaries. Harry 
Bailly in the Introduction to the Man of Lowes Tale de- 
termines the day of the month and hour of the day by mak- 
ing calculations from the observed position of the sun 
in the sky, and from the length of shadows, although, says 
Chaucer, "he were not depe expert in lore." 3 Such re- 



iThe Phisiciens Tale, C. 11-26. 
2 See Appendix, I. 
SB. 1 ff. 



28 Studies in Language and Literature 

ferences to technical details of astronomy as we find in this 
passage are, however, not common in Chaucer's poetry; 
in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, on the other hand, a pro- 
fessedly scientific work designed to instruct his young son 
Louis in those elements of astronomy and astrology that 
were necessary for learning the use of the astrolabe, we 
have sufficient evidence that he was thoroughly familiar 
with the technical details of the astronomical science of his 
day. 

In Chaucer's poetry the astronomical references em- 
ployed are almost wholly of two kinds : references showing 
the time of day or season of the year at which the events 
narrated are supposed to take place ; and figurative allusions 
for purposes of illustration or comparison. Figurative uses 
of astronomy in Chaucer vary from simple similes as in the 
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, where the friar's eyes 
are compared to twinkling stars 1 to extended allegories like 
the Compleynt of Mars in which the myth of Venus and 
Mars is related by describing the motions of the planets 
Venus and Mars for a certain period during which Venus 
overtakes Mars, they are in conjunction 2 for a short time, 
and then Venus because of her greater apparent velocity 
leaves Mars behind. One of the most magnificent as- 
tronomical figures employed by Chaucer is in the Hous of 

"Our Hoste sey wel that the brighte sonne 

The ark of his artificial day had ronne 

The fourthe part, and half an houre, and more; 

And though he were not depe expert in lore, 

He wiste it was the eightetethe day 

Of April, that is messager to May; 

And sey wel that the shadwe of every tree 

Was as in lengthe the same quantitee 

That was the body erect that caused it. 

And therefor by the shadwe he took his wit 

That Phebus, which that shoon so clere and brighte, 

Degrees was fyve and fourty clombe on highte; 

And for that day, as in that latitude, 

It was ten of the clokke, he gan conclude, 

And sodeynly he plighte his hors aboute." 
For Chaucer's accuracy in this reference see Appendix II. 
^Prologue, 267-68. 

2 Planets are said to be in conjunction with one another when 
they appear as one object or very close together within a limited area 
of the sky. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 29 

Fame. Chaucer looks up into the heavens and sees a great 
golden eagle near the sun, a sight so splendid that men could 
never have beheld its equal 'unless the heaven had won an- 
other sun:' 

"Hit was of golde, and shone so bright, 
That never saw men such a sighte, 
But-if the heven hadde y-wonne 
Al newe of golde another sonne; 
So shoon the egles fethres brighte, 
And somwhat dounward gan hit lighte." 1 

Besides mentioning the heavenly bodies in time re- 
ferences and figurative allusions, Chaucer also employs 
them often in descriptions of day and night, of dawn and 
twilight, and of the seasons. It is with a poet's joy in the 
warm spring sun that he writes : 

1 'Bright was the day, and blew the firmament, 
Phebus of gold his stremes doun hath sent, 
To gladen every flour with his warmnesse." 2 

and with a poet's delight in the new life and vigor that 
nature puts forth when spring comes that he writes the 
lines : 

"Forgeten had the erthe his pore estat 
Of winter, that him naked made and mat, 
And with his swerd of cold so sore greved ; 
Now hath the atempre sonne al that releved 
That naked was, and clad hit new agayn." 3 

Chaucer's astronomical allusions, then, except in the 
Treatise on the Astrolabe and in his translation of Boethius 
de Consolatione Philosophiae, in which a philosophical in- 
terest in celestial phenomena is displayed, are almost in- 

iThe Hous of Fame, Book I. 503-8. Cf. Dante, Paradiso i. 58-63: 

"I not long endured him, nor yet so little but that I saw him 

sparkle all around, like iron issuing molten from the furnace. 

And, of a sudden, meseemed that day was added unto day, as 

2 The Marchantes Tale, E. 2219-21. 

^Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, 125-9. 

though he who hath the power, had adorned heaven with a 
second sun." 



30 Studies in Language and Literature 

variably employed with poetic purpose. These poetical 
allusions to heavenly phenomena, however, together with 
the more technical and detailed references in Chaucer's 
prose works give evidence of a rather extensive know- 
ledge of astronomy. With all of the important observed 
movements of the heavenly bodies he was perfectly familiar 
and it is rather remarkable how many of these he uses 
in his poetry without giving one the feeling that he is air- 
ing his knowledge. 

1. The Sun 
Of all the heavenly bodies the one most often mentioned 
and employed for poetic purposes by Chaucer is the sun. 
Chaucer has many epithets for the sun, but speaks of him 
perhaps most often in the classical manner as Phebus or 
Apollo. He is called the "golden tressed Phebus'' 1 or the 
"laurer-crowned Phebus;"- and when he makes Mars flee 
from Venus' palace he is called the "candel of lelosye." 3 In 
the following passage Chaucer uses three different epithets 
for the sun within two lines: 

"The dayes honour, and the hevenes ye, 
The nightes fo, al this clepe I the sonne, 
Gan westren faste, and dounward for to wrye, 
As he that hadde his dayes cours y-ronne ;" 4 

Sometimes Chaucer gives the sun the various accessories 
with which classical myth had endowed him — the four 
swift steeds, the rosy chariot and fiery torches: 

"And Phebus with his rosy carte sone 
Gan after that to dresse him up to fare.""' 

' "now am I war 
That Pirous and tho swifte stedes three, 
Which that drawen forth the sonnes char, 



^Troilus and Criseyde, V. 8. 

mid. V, 1107. 

s Compleynt of Mars, 7. 

The epithet "candel of lelosye" is an allusion to the classical myth 
according to which Phoebus (the Sun), having discovered the amour 
between Mars and Venus, revealed it to Vulcan thus arousing him to 
jealousy. 

*Troilus and Criseyde, II, 904-907. 

Hbid. V. 278-279. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 31 

Hath goon some by-path in despyt of me ;' ' n 

"Phebus, that was comen hastely 
Within the paleys-yates sturdely, 
With torche in honde, of which the stremes brighte 
On Venus chambre knokkeden ful lighte." 2 

Almost always when Chaucer wishes to mention the 
time of day at which the events he is relating take place, 
he does so by describing the sun's position in the sky or the 
direction of his motion. We can imagine that Chaucer 
often smiled as he did this, for he sometimes humorously 
apologizes for his poetical conceits and conventions by ex- 
pressing his idea immediately afterwards in perfectly plain 
terms. Such is the case in the passage already quoted where 
Chaucer refers to the sun by the epithets "dayes honour," 
"hevenes ye," and "nightes fo" and then explains them 
by saying "al this clepe I the sonne ;" and in the lines : 

"Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe ; 
For thorisonte hath reft the sonne his light ;" 

explained by the simple words : 

"This is as muche to seye as it was night." 3 

Thus it is that Chaucer's poetic references to the ap- 
parent daily motion of the sun about the earth are nearly 
always simply in the form of allusions to his rising and set- 
ting. Canacee in the Squieres Tale, (F. 384 ff.) is said to 
rise at dawn, looking as bright and fresh as the spring sun 
risen four degrees from the horizon. 

"Up ryseth fresshe Canacee hir-selve, 
As rody and bright as dooth the yonge sonne, 
That in the Ram 4 is four degrees up-ronne; 
Noon hyer was he, whan she redy was;" 
Many of these references to the rising and setting of the 
sun might be mentioned, if space permitted, simply for 
their beauty as poetry. One of the most beautiful is the 
following : 

iTroilus and Criseyde, III. 1702-5. 
2 Compleynt of Mars, 81-84. 
ZFrankeleyns Tale, F. 1016-18. 
4 See Appendix III. 



32 Studies in Language and Literature 

"And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte, 
That al the orient laugheth of the lighte, 
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves 
The silver dropes, hanging on the leves." 1 
When, in the Canterbury Tales, the manciple has fin- 
ished his tale, Chaucer determines the time by observing 
the position of the sun and by making calculations from the 
length of his own shadow: 

"By that the maunciple hadde his tale al ended, 
The sonne fro the south lyne was descended 
So lowe, that he nas nat, to my sighte, 
Degrees nyne and twenty as in highte. 
Foure of the clokke it was tho, as I gesse ; 
For eleven foot, or litel more or lesse, 
My shadwe was at thilke tyme, as there, 
Of swich feet as my lengthe parted were 
In six feet equal of porporcioun." 2 

We must not omit mention of the humorous touch with 
which Chaucer, in the mock heroic tale of Chanticleer and 
the Fox told by the nun's priest, makes even the rooster de- 
termine the time of day by observing the altitude of the 
sun in the sky: 

"Chauntecleer, in al his pryde, 
His seven wyves walkyng by his syde, 
Caste up his eyen to the brighte sonne, 
That in the signe of Taurus hadde y-ronne 
Twenty degrees and oon, and somewhat more ; 
And knew by kynde, and by noon other lore, 
That it was pryme, and crew with blisful stevene. 
The sonne,' he sayde, 'is clomben up on hevene 
Fourty degrees and oon, and more, y-wis.' " 3 

iKnightes Tale, A 1493-1496. 

2 Parson's Prologue, I. 1-9. See Appendix IV. 

3 Nonne Preestes Tale, B. 4381-89. Chaucer has already indicated 
the date as May 3 by saying that March is complete and thirty-two 
days have passed besides. (1. 4379). That the sun would on May 
3 have passed the 21st degree of Aries can be verified by reference 
to Fig. 1 in Skeat's Introduction to the Astrolabe. A straight edge 
ing May 3 would cross the circle of the zodiacal signs at a point a 
little past the 21st degree of Aries. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 33 

Moreover, this remarkable rooster observed that the sun 
had passed the twenty-first degree in Taurus, and we are 
told elsewhere that he knew each ascension of the equil- 
noctial and crew at each; that is, he crew every hour, as 15° 
of the equinoctial correspond to an hour: 

"Wei sikerer was his crowing in his logge, 
Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge. 
By nature knew he ech ascencioun 1 
Of th' equinoxial in thilke toun ; 
For whan degrees fiftene were ascended, 
Thanne crew he, that it mighte nat ben amended." 2 

Chaucer announces the approach of evening by de- 
scribing the position and appearance of the sun more often 
than any other time of the day. In the Legend of Good 
Women he speaks of the sun's leaving the south point* 
of his daily course and approaching the west : 

"Whan that the sonne out of the south gan weste," 4 
and again of his westward motion in the lines : 

"And whan that hit is eve, I rene blyve, 
As sone as ever the sonne ginneth weste," 5 

Elsewhere Chaucer refers to the setting of the sun by say- 
ing that he has completed his "ark divine" and may no 
longer remain on the horizon, or by saying that the 'hori- 
zon has bereft the sun of his light.' 7 

Chaucer's references to the daily motion of the sun 
about the earth are apt to sound to us like purely poetical 
figures, so accustomed are we to refer to the sun, what we 
know to be the earth's rotatory motion, by speaking of his 
apparent daily motion thus figuratively as if it were real. 
Chaucer's manner of describing the revolution of the heav- 
enly bodies about the earth and his application of poetic 
epithets to them are figurative, but the motion itself was 

1 Ascension means 'ascending degree.' 
Vtonne Preestes Tale, B. 4043-4048. 

3 The sun reaches his farthest point to the south at noon when 
on the meridian. See appendix I. 
^Prologue, 197. 
*Ibid. 60-61. 

Q Marchantes Tale, E. 1795-7. 
7 Frankeleyns Tale, F. 1016-17. 



34 Studies in Language and Literature 

meant literally and was believed in by the men of his century, 
because only the geocentric system of astronomy was then 
known. If Chaucer had been in advance of his century 
in this respect there would certainly be some hint of the 
fact in his writings. 

References in Chaucer to the sun's yearly motion are 
in the same sense literal. The apparent motion of the sun 
along the ecliptic, 1 which we know to be caused by the 
earth's yearly motion in an elliptical orbit around the sun, 
was then believed to be an actual movement of the sun 
carried along by his revolving sphere. Like the references 
to the sun's daily movements those that mention his yearly 
motion along the ecliptic are also usually time references. 
The season of the year is indicated by defining the sun's 
position among the signs of the zodiac. The Canterbury pil- 
grims set out on their journey in April when 

"the yonge sonne 
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-ronne. 



»»0 



In describing the month of May, Chaucer does not fail 
to mention the sun's position in the zodiac : 

"In May, that moder is of monthes glade, 
That fresshe floures, blewe, and whyte, and rede, 
Ben quike agayn, that winter dede made, 
And f ul of bawme is fletinge every mede ; 
Whan Phebus doth his brighte bemes sprede 
Right in the whyte Bole, it so bitidde 
As I shal singe, on Mayes day the thridde," 3 etc. 
The effect of the sun's declination in causing change of 
seasons 4 is mentioned a number of times in Chaucer's 



See Appendix I. 82 ff., 84 ff. 

2 Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, A. 7-8. 

At the beginning of April the sun is a little past the middle of 
Aries and at the beginning of May, roughly speaking, he is in the 
middle of Taurus. Thus the sun in April runs a half-course in Aries 
and a half-course in Taurus. Chaucer means here that the former 
of these half-courses is completed, so that it is some time after the 
eleventh of April. 

s Troilus and Criseyde, II. 50-56. On the third of May, in 
Chaucer's time, the sun would be past the twentieth degree of Taurus. 

4 The sun's declination means his angular distance north or south 
of the celestial equator. The solstices mark his maximum declination 
north or south. See Appendix I. 83 ff. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 35 

poetry. The poet makes a general reference to the fact in 
a passage of exquisite beauty from Troilus and Criseyde 
where he says that the sun has thrice returned to his lofty 
position in the sky and melted away the snows of winter : 

"The golden-tressed Phebus heighe on-lofte 
Thryes hadde alle with his bemes shene 
The snowes molte, and Zephirus as ofte 
Y-brought ayein the tendre leves grene, 
Sin that the sone of Ecuba the quene 
Bigan to love hir first, for whom his sorwe 
Was al, that she departe sholde a-morwe." 1 

More interesting astronomically but of less interest as 
poetry is his reference to the sun's declination and its 
effect on the seasons in the Frankeleyns Tale, because here 
Chaucer uses the word 'declination' and states that it is the 
cause of the seasons. The reference is the beginning of 
Aurelius' prayer to Apollo, or the sun : 

" 'Apollo, God and governour 
Of every plaunte, herbe, tree and flour, 
That yevest, after thy declinacioun, 
To ech of hem his tyme and his sesoun, 
As thyn herberwe chaungeth lowe or hye ;' " 2 

Once again in the Frankeleyns Tale Chaucer refers to 
the sun's declination and the passage of the seasons : 

"Phebus wex old, and hewed lyk latoun, 3 
That in his hote declinacioun 
Shoon as the burned gold with stremes brighte ; 
But now in Capricorn adoun he lighte, 
Wher-as he shoon ful pale, I dar wel seyn." 4 

Chaucer is here contrasting the sun's appearance in summer 
and winter. In his hot declination (his greatest north- 
ward declination in Cancer, about June 21) he shines as 
burnished gold, but when he reaches Capricornus, his great- 
est southward declination (about December 21) he appears 



IV. 8-14. 

^Frankeleyns Tale, F. 1031-35. See Appendix V. 

3 Latoun was a compound metal containing chiefly copper and zinc. 

*F. 1245-49. 



36 Studies in Language and Literature 

'old' and has a dull coppery color, no longer that of brilliant 
gold. 

2. The Moon 

From those references to the moon that occur in 
Chaucer's poetry alone, it would be impossible to determine 
just how much he knew of the peculiarities of her ap- 
parent movements ; for he alludes to the moon's motion and 
positions much less frequently and with much less detail 
than to those of the sun. But a passage in the prologue 
to the Astrolabe leaves it without doubt that Chaucer was 
quite familiar with lunar phenomena. In stating what the 
treatise is to contain, he says of the fourth part: "The 
whiche ferthe partie in special shal shewen a table of the 
verray moeving of the mone from houre to houre, every 
day and in every signe, after thyn almenak; upon which 
table ther f olwith a canon, suffisant to teche as wel the maner 
of the wyrking of that same conclusioun, as to knowe in 
oure orizonte with which degree of the zodiac that the mone 
ariseth in any latitude;" 1 As a matter of fact the treatise 
as first contemplated by Chaucer was never finished ; only 
the first two parts were written. But Chaucer would 
scarcely have written thus definitely of his plan for the 
fourth part of the work unless he had had fairly complete 
knowledge of the phenomena connected with the moon's 
movements. 

The moon, in Chaucer's imagination, must have oc- 
cupied rather an insignificant position among the heavenly 
bodies as far as appealing to his sense of beauty was con- 
cerned, for we find in his poetry no descriptions of her 
appearance that can compare with his descriptions of the 
sun or even of the stars. He speaks of moonrise in the 
the most general way: 

"hit fil, upon a night, 
When that the mone up-reysed had her light, 
This noble quene un-to her reste wente ;" 2 



1 Astrolabe, Prologue, 64-70. 
-Legend of Good Women, III. 1162-4, 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 37 

He applies to her only a few epithets, the most eulogistic 
of which is "Lucina the shene." 1 In comparing the sun 
with the other heavenly bodies the poet mentions the moon 
among the rest without distinction, as inferior to the sun : 

"For I dar swere, withoute doute, 
That as the someres sonne bright 
Is fairer, clerer, and hath more light 
Than any planete, (is) in heven, 
The mone, or the sterres seven, 
For al the worlde, so had she 
Surmounted hem alle of beaute," etc. 2 

On the other hand, the stars are elsewhere said to be like 
small candles in comparison with the moon : 

"And cleer as (is) the mone-light, 
Ageyn whom alle the sterres semen 
But smale candels, as we demen." 3 

Whenever Chaucer mentions the moon's position in the 
heavens he does so by reference to the signs of the zodiac 4 
and, as in the case of the sun, usually with the purpose of 
showing time. In the Marchantes Tale he expresses the 
passage of four days thus : 

"The mone that, at noon, was, thilke day 
That Ianuarie hath wedded f resshe May, 
In two of Taur, was in-to Cancre gliden ; 
So long hath Maius in hir chambre biden,""' 

and a few lines further on he states the fact explicitly : 



1 Troilus and Criseyde, IV. 1591. 

2 Book of the Duchesse, 820-26. 

s Romaunt of the Rose, 1010-12. 

4 See Appendix VI. 

^Marchantes Tale, E. 1885-8. 

To pass from the second degree of Taurus into Cancer the moon 
would have flo tjraverse the .remaining twenty-eight degrees pf 
Taurus, thirty of Gemini and at least one of Cancer, making 59° of 
the zodiac in all. For the moon to do this is possible, as Skeat has 
shown. See Appendix VII. 



38 Studies in Language and Literature 

"The fourthe day compleet fro noon to noon, 
Whan that the heighe masse was y-doon, 
In halle sit this Ianuarie, and May 
As fresh as is the brighte someres day." 1 

When Criseyde leaves Troilus to go to the Greek army 
she promises to return to Troy within the time that it will 
take the moon to pass from Aries through Leo, that is, with- 
in ten days: 

" 'And trusteth this, that certes, herte swete, 
Er Phebus suster, Lucina the shene, 
The Leoun passe out of this Ariete, 
I wol ben here, with-outen any wene. 
I mene, as helpe me Iuno, hevenes quene, 
The tenthe day, but-if that deeth me assayle, 
I wol yow seen, with-outen any fayle.' " 2 
But while the moon is quickly traversing the part of her 
course from Aries to Leo, Criseyde, pressed by Diomede, 
is changing her mind about returning to Troy, and by the 
appointed tenth day has decided to remain with the Greeks : 
"And Cynthea 3 hir char-hors over-raughte 
To whirle out of the Lyon, if she mighte; 
And Signifer 4 his candeles shewed brighte, 
Whan that Criseyde un-to hir bedde wente 
In-with hir fadres faire brighte tente. 

and thus bigan to brede 

The cause why, the sothe for to telle, 
That she tok fully purpos for to dwelle." 5 
The passage of time is also indicated in Chaucer's 
poetry by reference to the recurrence of the moon's phases. 
In the Legend of Good Women, Phillis writes to the false 

iMarchantes Tale, E. 1893-6. 

^Troilus and Criseyde. IV. 1590-96. Chaucer's reference to the 
moon's motion is again correct. It would, in fact, take the moon about 
ten days to pass from Aries through Leo, traversing four signs, 
Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and Leo, or about one-third of the whole 
zodiac. See Skeat, Notes to Tro-lus and Criseyde, p. 494. 

3 The moon. 

4 The 'sign-bearer' ; that it, the zodiac. His candles are ol course 
the stars and planets that appear in the zodiac. 

^Troilus and Criseyde, V. 1018-22; 1027-29. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 39 

Demophon saying that the moon has passed through its 
phases four times since he went away and thrice since the 
time he promised to return : 

" 'Your anker, which ye in our haven leyde, 
Highte us, that ye wolde comen, out of doute, 
Or that the mone ones wente aboute. 
But tymes foure the mone hath hid her face 
Sin thiike day ye wente fro this place, 
And foure tymes light the world again.' ' n 
Chaucer refers more often to the phases of the moon 
than to any other lunar phenomenon, but most of these re- 
ferences to her phases are used for the sake of comparison 
or illustration and give us little idea of the extent of 
Chaucer's knowledge. Mars in his 'compleynt' says that the 
lover 

' 'Hath ofter wo then changed is the mone." 2 
The rumors in the house of fame are given times of waxing 
and waning like the moon : 

"Thus out at holes gonne wringe 
Every tyding streight to Fame; 
And she gan yeven eche his name, 
After hir disposicioun, 
And yaf hem eek duracioun, 
Some to wexe and wane sone, 
As dooth the faire whyte mone, 
And leet hem gon." 3 
Chaucer briefly describes the crescent moon by calling her 

"The bente mone with hir homes pale" 4 
In Troilus' prayer to the moon, the line 

" 'I saugh thyn homes olde eek by the morwe,' " 5 

is practically the only one in which Chaucer gives any hint 
01 the times at which the moon in her various phases may 
be seen. The phase of the 'new moon,' when the moon is in 



^Legend of Good Women, 2501-6. 

2 Compleynt of Mars, 235. 

Wous of Fame, 2110-17. 

^Troilus and Criseyde, III. 624. 

Hbid. V. 652. "by the morwe" means 'early in the morning.' 



40 Studies in Language and Literature 

conjunction with the sun (i. e., between the earth and the 
sun, so that we cannot see the illuminated hemisphere of 
the moon) is mentioned in the same poem: 

"Right sone upon the chaunging of the mone, 
Whan lightles is the world a night or tweyne." 1 

There is a very definite description of three of the 
moon's phases in the following passage from Boethius: 2 
"so that the mone som-tyme shyning with hir ful homes, 
meting with alle the bemes of the sonne hir brother, hydeth 
the sterres that ben lesse; and som-tyme, whan the mone, 
pale with hir derke homes, approcheth the sonne, leseth 
hir lightes ;" The moon 'shining with her full horns' means 
with her horns filled up as at full moon when she is in a 
position opposite both earth and sun so that she reflects 
upon the earth all the rays of the sun. The moon "with 
derke homes" refers of course to the waning moon, a thin 
crescent near the sun and almost obscured in his light, 
which approaching nearer the sun is entirely lost to our view 
in his rays and becomes the new moon. 

Chaucer's most interesting references to the moon are 
found in the prayer of Aurelius to the sun in the Frank- 
eleyns Tale. Dorigen has jestingly promised to have pity 
on Aurelius as soon as he shall remove all the rocks from 
along the coast of Brittany, and Aurelius prays to the sun, 
or Apollo, to help him by enlisting the aid of the moon, in 
accomplishing this feat. The sun's sister, Lucina, or the 
moon, is chief goddess of the sea; just as she desires to 
follow the sun and be quickened and illuminated by him, so 
the sea desires to follow her: 

" 'Your blisful suster, Lucina the shene, 

That of the see is chief goddesse and quene, 
Though Neptunus have deitee in the see, 
Yet emperesse aboven him is she : 
Ye knowen wel, lord, that right as hir desyr 
Is to be quiked and lightned of your fyr, 



iTroilns and Criseyde, III. edt-ej. See Appendix VIII. p. 91. 
2Book I. : Metre V. 4-7. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 41 

For which she folweth yow ful bisily, 
Right so the see desyreth naturelly 
To folwen hir, as she that is goddesse 
Bothe in the see and riveres more and lesse.' * n 

In calling Lucina chief goddess of the sea and speaking of 
the sea's desire to follow her, Chaucer is, of course allud- 
ing to the moon's effect upon the tides ; and in the line : 

" 'Is to be quiked and lightned of your fyr/ " 

the reference is to the fact that the moon derives her light 
from the sun. 

Instead of leaving it to the sun-god to find a way of 
removing the rocks for him, Aurelius proceeds to give ex- 
plicit instructions as to how this may be accomplished. As 
the highest tides occur when the moon is in opposition or in 
conjunction with the sun, if the moon could only be kept in 
either of these positions with regard to the sun for a long 
enough time, so great a flood would be produced, Aurelius 
thinks, that the rocks would be washed away. So he 
prays Phebus to induce the moon to slacken her speed at her 
next opposition in Leo and for two years to traverse her 
sphere with the same (apparent) velocity as that of the sun, 
thus remaining in opposition with him: 

" 'Wherfore, lord Phebus, this is my requeste — 
Do this miracle, or do myn herte breste — 
That now, next at this opposicioun, 
Which in the signe shal be of the Leoun, 
As preyeth hir so greet a flood to bringe, 
That fyve fadme at the leeste it overspringe 
The hyeste rokke in Armorik Briteyne ; 
And lat this flood endure yeres tweyne ; 



Preye hir she go no faster cours than ye, 
I seye, preyeth your suster that she go 
No faster cours than ye thise yeres two. 
Than shal she been evene atte fulle alway, 



1 Frankeley7is Tale, F. 1045-54. 



42 Studies in Language and Literature 

And spring-flood laste bothe night and day.' m 
References to eclipses of the moon occur seldom in 
Chaucer. In the second part of the Romaunt of the Rose, 
which is included in complete editions of Chaucer's works 
but which he almost certainly did not write, there is a de- 
scription of a lunar eclipse and of its causes. Fickleness 
in love is compared to an eclipse : 

"For it shal chaungen wonder sone, 
And take eclips right as the mone, 
Whan she is from us (y)-let 
Thurgh erthe, that bitwixe is set 
The sonne and hir, as it may falle, 
Be it in party, or in alle; 
The shadowe maketh her bemis merke, 
And hir homes to shewe derke, 
That part where she hath lost hir lyght 
Of Phebus fully, and the sight ; 
Til, whan the shadowe is overpast, 
She is enlumined ageyn as faste, 
Thurgh brightnesse of the sonne bemes 
That yeveth to hir ageyn hir lemes." 2 

This passage is so clear that it needs no explanation. 

An eclipse of the moon, since it is caused by the passing 
of the moon into the shadow of the earth, can only take 
place when the moon is full, that is, in opposition to the 
sun. This fact is suggested in a reference in Boethius to a 
lunar eclipse: 

^Frankeleyns Tale, F. 1055-70. Skeat explains the lines: 
"next at this opposicioun, 
Which in the signe shal be of the Leoun," 
thus: Earlier in the poem (1. 906) May 6 is mentioned and it is on 
this date that the events narrated so far are supposed to have taken 
place. In May the sun is in Taurus, so that the moon at her next op- 
position would have to be in the opposite sign, Scorpio. The reference 
must mean therefore: — "at the next opposition that takes place with 
the sun in Leo," not the very next one with the sun in Taurus, nor 
the next with the sun in Gemini or Cancer. This reason for waiting 
until there should be an opposition with the sun in Leo, was astro- 
logical. Leo was the mansion of the Sun, so that the sun's power when 
|n f hat sign would be greatest. 

~B. 5333-46. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 43 

"the homes of the fulle mone wexen pale and infect 
by the boundes of the derke night;" 1 

In the next lines Chaucer mentions the fact that the stars 
which are lost to sight in the bright rays of the full moon 
become visible during an eclipse : 

"and the mone, derk and confuse, discovereth 

the sterres that she hadde y-covered by hir clere visage." 2 

3. The Planets 

All the planets that are easily visible to the unaided 
eye were known in Chaucer's time and are mentioned in his 
writings, some of them many times. These planets are 
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. According to the 
Ptolemaic system, which as we have seen, held sway in the 
world of learning during Chaucer's century, the sun and 
moon were also held to be planets, and all were supposed to 
revolve around the earth in concentric rings, the moon being 
nearest the earth, and the sun between Venus and Mars. 
The circular orbit of each planet was called its "deferent" 
and upon the deferent moved, not the planet itself, but an 
imaginary planet, represented by a point. The real planet 
moved upon a smaller circle called the "epicycle" whose 
center was the moving point representing the imaginary 
planet. The deferent of each planet was supposed to be 
traced as a great circle upon a transparent separate crystal 
sphere; and all of the crystal spheres revolved once a day 
around an axis passing through the poles of the heavens. 
As the sun and moon did not show the same irregularities 3 
of motion as the planets, Ptolemy supposed these two bodies 
to have deferents but no epicycles. Later investigators 
complicated the system by adding further secondary im- 
aginary planets, revolving in Ptolemy's epicycles and with 
the actual planets attached to additional corresponding 
epicycles. They even supposed the moon to have one, per- 
haps two epicycles and we shall find this notion reflected in 

iBook IV. : Metre V. 8-9. 

2Ibid. 10-11. 

3 See Appendix IX. p. ff. 



44 Studies in Language and Literature 

Chaucer. The eighth sphere had neither deferent nor 
epicycle but to it were attached the fixed stars. This sphere 
as we have seen earlier, revolved slowly from west to 
east to account for the precession of the equinoxes, while 
a ninth sphere, the primum mobile, imparted to all the 
inner spheres their diurnal motion from east to west. 

Chaucer's poetical references to the planets, as we have 
found to be true in the case of the sun and moon, do not 
give us satisfactory evidence of the extent of his knowledge, 
but occasional passages from his prose works again throw 
light on these allusions. Chaucer refers to the planets in 
general as 'the seven stars,' as, for instance, in the lines : 

"And with hir heed she touched hevene, 
Ther as shynen sterres sevene." 1 



and 



"To have mo floures, swiche seven 
As in the welken sterres be." 2 



Chaucer was undoubtedly familiar with the irregular- 
ities of the planetary movements, and with the theory of 
epicycles by which these irregular movements were in his 
day explained, although it is not from his poetry that we 
can learn the fact. He uses the word 'epicycle' only once 
in all his works. In the Astrolabe when comparing the 
moon's motion with that of the other planets, he says : "for 
sothly, the mone moeveth the contrarie from othere planetes 
as in hir episicle, but in non other manere." 3 

In the Astrolabe* Chaucer explains a method of deter- 
mining whether a planet's motion is retrograde or direct. 5 
The altitude of the planet and of any fixed star, is taken, 

1 Hous of Fame, III. 1375-6. 

2 Book of the Duchesse, III. 408-9. 

^Astrolabe, II. 35. 17-18. The attempt to explain the moon's 
motion by supposing her to move in an epicycle was hopelessly wrong. 
Chaucer means here simply that the moon's motion in her deferent 
is direct like that of the other planets (their apparent motion is in 
the direction west to east except at short periods of retrogression) 
but that the moon's direction of motion in her epicycle is the reverse 
of that of the other planets. 

411. 35. 
•^See Appendix IX. p. 92 ff. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 45 

and several nights later at the time when the fixed star 
has the same altitude as at the previous observation, the 
planet's altitude is again observed. If the planet is on the 
right or east side of the meridian, and its second altitude 
is less than its first, then the planet's motion is direct. If the 
planet is on the left or west side of the meridian, and has 
a smaller altitude at the second observation than at the 
first, then the planet's motion is retrograde. If the planet 
is on the east side of the meridional line when its altitude 
is taken and the second altitude is greater than the first, it 
is retrograde; and if it is on the west side and its second 
altitude is greater, it is direct. This method would be cor- 
rect were it not that a change in the planet's declination 
or angular distance from the celestial equator might render 
the conclusions incorrect. 

Chaucer mentions the irregularity of planetary move- 
ments in Boethius also when he says : "and whiche sterre in 
hevene useth wandering recourses, y-flit by dyverse 
speres." 1 The expression "y-flit by dyverse speres" may 
have reference only to the one motion of the planets, that is, 
their motion concentric to the star-sphere; or it may be 
used to include also their epicyclic motion. Skeat interprets 
the expression in the former way ; but the context, it seems, 
would justify interpreting the words "dyverse speres" as 
meaning the various spheres of the planets to-gether with 
their epicycles ; i. e., both deferents and epicycles. 

Of all the planets, that most often mentioned by Chaucer 
is Venus, partly, no doubt, because of her greater brilliance, 
but probably in the main because of her greater astrological 
importance; for few of Chaucer's references to Venus, or 
to any other planet, indeed, are without astrological signi- 
ficance. Chaucer refers to Venus, in the classical manner, 
as Hesperus when she appears as evening 2 star and as Lu- 
cifer when she is seen as the morning star: "and that the 

iBook I: Metre II. 8-9. 

2 Mercury and Venus are always seen either just before sunrise 
or just after sunset because their distances from the sun are so com- 
paratively small. 



46 Studies in Language and Literature 

eve-sterre Hesperus, which that in the firste tyme of the 
night bringeth forth hir colde arysinges, cometh eft ayein 
hir used cours, and is pale by the morwe at the rysing of 
the sonne, and is thanne cleped Lucifer. 1 Her appearance 
as morning star is again mentioned in the same work: 
"and after that Lucifer the day-sterre hath chased awey the 
derke night, the day the fairere ledeth the rosene hors of 
the sonne," 2 and in Troilus and Criseyde where it is said that 

"Lucifer, the dayes messager, 
Gan for to ryse, and out hir bemes throwe ;" :; 

Elsewhere in the same poem her appearance as evening 
star is mentioned but she is not this time called Hesperus : 

"The brighte Venus folwede and ay taughte 
The wey, ther brode Phebus doun alighte ;" 4 

Occasionally Venus is called Cytherea, from the island near 
which Greek myth represented her as having arisen from 
the sea. Thus in the Knightes Tale: 

"He roos, to wenden on his pilgrimage 
Un-to the blisful Citherea benigne, 
I mene Venus, honurable and digne." 5 
and in the Parlement of Foules ; 

"Citherea! thou blisful lady swete," 6 

The relative positions of the different planets in the 
heavens is suggested by allusions to the different sizes of 
their spheres and to their different velocities. In the Com- 
pleynt of Mars the comparative sizes and velocities of the 
spheres of Mercury, Venus and Mars are made the basis for 
most of the action of the poem. The greater the sphere or 
orbit of a planet, the slower is its apparent motion. Thus 
Mars in his large sphere moves about half as fast as Venus 
and in the poem it is planned that when Mars reaches the 

iBoethius, Bk. I.: Metre V. 8-11. 

Hbid, Bk. Ill: Metre I. 6-8. 

^Troilus and Criseyde, Bk. III. 1417-18. 

Hbid. V. 1016-17. 

5A. 2214-16. 

6113. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 47 

next palace 1 of Venus, he shall by virtue of his slower mo- 
tion, wait for her to overtake him : 

"That Mars shal entre, as faste as he may glyde, 
Into hir nexte paleys, to abyde, 
Walking his cours til she had him a-take, 
And he preyde hir to haste hir for his sake."- 

Venus in compassion for his solitude hastens to overtake 
her knight: 

"She hath so gret compassion of hir knight, 
That dwelleth in solitude til she come; 

Wherefore she spedde hir as faste in her weye, 
Almost in oon day, as he dide in tweye." 3 

When Phebus comes into the palace with his fiery torch, 
Mars will not flee and cannot hide, so he girds himself with 
sword and armour and bids Venus flee. Phebus, who in 
Chaucer's time was regarded as the fourth planet, can over- 
take Mars but not Venus because his sphere is between 
theirs and his motion is consequently slower than that of 
Venus but faster than that of Mars : 

"Flee wolde he not, ne mighte him-selven hyde. 

He throweth on his helm of huge wighte, 
And girt him with his swerde ; and in his honde 
His mighty spere, as he was wont to fighte, 
He shaketh so that almost it to-wonde ; 
Ful hevy he was to walken over londe ; 
He may not holde with Venus companye, 
But bad hir fleen, lest Phebus hir espye. 



ir rhis is an astrological term. A palace, mansion or house was 
that zodiacal sign in which a planet was supposed to be peculiarly at 
home. 

2 Compleynt of Mars, 53-56. Mars is to hurry until he reaches 
Venus' palace and then advance as slowly as possible, to wait for her. 
Evidently Chaucer was aware of the varying apparent velocities of 
planetary motions. 

3 Ibid. 64-70. When Venus overtakes Mars they are in conjunc- 
tion. 



48 Studies in Language and Literature 

"0 wof ul Mars ! alas ! what mayst thou seyn, 
That in the paleys of thy disturbaunce 
Art left behinde, in peril to be sleyn ? 

That thou nere swift, wel mayst thou wepe 

and cryen." 1 
In spite of his sorrow, Mars patiently continues to follow 
Venus, lamenting as he goes that his sphere is so large: 

"He passeth but oo steyre in dayes two, 
But ner the les, for al his hevy armure, 
He f oloweth hir that is his lyves cure ;- 



After he walketh softely a pas, 
Compleyning, that hit pite was to here. 
He seyde, '0 lady bright, Venus! alas! 
That ever so wyde a compass is my spere! 
Alas ! whan shal I mete yow, herte dere/ " etc. 3 

Meanwhile Venus has passed on to Mercury's palace where 
he soon overtakes her and receives her as his friend : 4 

"hit happed for to be, 
That, whyl that Venus weping made hir mone, 
Cylenius, ryding in his chevauche, 
Fro Venus valance mighte his. paleys see, 
And Venus he salueth, and maketh chere, 
And hir receyveth as his frend ful dere." 5 

Mercury's palace was the sign Gemini and Venus' valance, 
probably meaning her detrimentum or the sign opposite 
her palace, was Aries. 'Chevauche' means an equestrian 
journey or ride, and is here used in the sense of 'swift 
course.' The passage, then, simply refers to the swift 
motion by which in a very short time Mercury passes from 
Aries to a position near enough to that of Venus in Gemini 
so that he can see her and give her welcome. Mercury's 

mid. 98-112. 

2 That is, the motions of both planets are direct, not retrograde. 

mid. 129-138. 

*Ibid. 142-147. 

5 That is, the two planets appear very close together in the sky. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 49 

sphere being the smallest of the planets, his motion is also 
the swiftest. 

The size of Jupiter's orbit is not mentioned in Chaucer 
and that of Saturn's only once. In the Knightes Tale 
Saturn, addressing Venus, speaks of the great distance that 
he traverses with his revolving sphere but does not com- 
pare the size of his sphere with those of the other planets : 

" 'My dere doghter Venus,' quod Saturne, 
'My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne, 
Hath more power than wot any man.' m 

Besides the reference in the Compleynt of Mars to the 
conjunction of Venus and Mars 2 , there are occasional re- 
ferences in Chaucer to conjunctions of other planets. In 
the Astrolabe* Chaucer explains a method of determining 
in what position in the heavens a conjunction of the sun 
and moon takes place, when the time of the conjunction 
is known. A conjunction of the moon with Saturn and 
Jupiter is mentioned in Troilus and Criseyde, in the lines: 

"The bente mone with hir homes pale, 
Saturne, and love, in Cancro ioyned were," 4 

4. The Galaxy 

The Galaxy or Milky Way, which stretches across the 
heavens like a broad band whitish in color caused by closely 
crowded stars, has appealed to men's imagination since very 
early times. Its resemblance to a road or street has 
been suggested in the names given to it by many peoples. 
Ovid called it via lactea and the Roman peasants, strada 
di Roma; pilgrims to Spain referred to it as the road to 
Santiago ; Dante refers to it as "the white circle commonly 

^Knightes Tale, A. 2453-5. 
271-72: 

"The grete Ioye that was betwix hem two, 
Whan they be met, ther may no tunge telle." 
311. 32. 
4III. 624-5. 



50 Studies in Language and Literature 

called St. Janus's Way" 1 ; and the English had two names 
for it, Walsingham way and W oiling -street. 

Chaucer twice mentions the Galaxy; once in the Par- 
lement of Foules, where Africanus shows Scipio the location 
of heaven by pointing to the Galaxy : 

"And rightful folk shal go, after they dye, 
To heven ; and shewed him the galaxye." 2 

In the Rous of Fame, the golden eagle who bears Chau- 
cer through the heavens toward Fame's palace, points 
out to him the Galaxy and then relates the myth of Phaeton 
driving the chariot of the sun, a story traditionally as- 
sociated with the Milky Way : 

'Now, 'quod he tho,' cast up thyn ye; 
See yonder, lo, the Galaxye, 
Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, 
For hit is whyt : and somme, parf ey, 
Callen hit Watlinge Strete: 
That ones was y-brent with hete, 
Whan the sonnes sone, the rede, 
That highte Pheton, wolde lede 
Algate his fader cart, and gye. 
The cart-hors gonne wel espye 
That he ne coude no governaunce, 
And gonne for to lepe and launce, 
And beren him now up, now doun, 
Til that he saw the Scorpioun, 
Which that in heven a signe is yit. 
And he, for ferde, loste his wit, 
Of that, and lest the reynes goon 
Of his hors ; and they anoon 
Gonne up to mounte, and doun descende 
Til bothe the eyr and erthe brende ; 
Til Iupiter, lo, atte laste, 
Him slow, and fro the carte caste." :l 
In narrating this story here, Chaucer may have been imi- 

1 Convivio, II. xv. 10. 

255-56. 

Wous of Fame, II. 935-956. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 51 

tating Dante who refers to the myth in the Divine Com- 
edy: 

"What time abandoned Phaeton the reins, 
Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were 

scorched," 1 
and states its source and the use made of it by some phil- 
osophers in the Convivio: 

"For the Pythagoreans affirmed that the sun at one 
time wandered in its course, and in passing through other 
regions not suited to sustain its heat, set on fire the place 
through which it passed ; and so these traces of the confla- 
gration remain there. And I believe that they were in- 
fluenced by the fable of Phaeton, which Ovid tells at the 
beginning of the second book of the Metamorphoses.'" 2 



Astrological Lore in Chaucer 

Astrology, though resembling a science in that it makes 
use of observation and seeks to establish laws governing 
its data, is in reality a faith or creed. It had its beginning, 
so tradition tells us, in the faith of the ancient Babylonians 
in certain astral deities who exerted an influence upon ter- 
restrial events and human life. The basis of this faith was 
not altogether illogical but contained a germ of truth. 

Of all the heavenly bodies, the sun exerted the most 
obvious effect upon the earth; the sun brought day and 
night, summer and winter; his rays lured growing things 
from mother earth and so gave sustenance to mankind. 
But to the ancient peoples of the Orient the sun was also 
often a baneful power ; he could destroy as well as give life. 
Therefore, the ancients came to look upon the sun as a great 
and powerful god to be worshipped and propitiated by men. 
And if the sun was such a power, it was natural to believe 
that all the other bright orbs of the sky were lesser div- 

ilnferno, xvii. 107-108. 
2 Convivio, II. xv. 48-55. 



52 Studies in Language and Literature 

inities who exercised more limited powers on the earth. 
From this beginning, based, as we have seen, on a germ of 
fact, by the power of his imagination and credulity, man 
extended more and more the powers of these sidereal div- 
inities, attributing to their volition and influence all the 
most insignificant as well as the most important terrestrial 
events. And if the heavenly bodies, by revolving about the 
earth in ceaseless harmony, effected the recurrence of day 
and night and of the seasons, and if their configurations 
were responsible for the minutest events in nature, was it 
not natural to suppose that, besides affecting man thus in- 
directly, they also influenced him directly and were re- 
sponsible for his conduct and for the very qualities of his 
mind and soul? Perhaps the astonishing variety of the in- 
fluences that the celestial bodies, from ancient until modern 
times, were supposed to exercise over the world and the 
life of mankind can be accounted for by imagining some 
such process of thought to have been involved in the be- 
ginnings of astrology. 

It was but a step from faith in stellar influence on our 
earth to the belief that, as the heavenly movements were 
governed by immutable laws, so their influence upon the 
world would follow certain laws and its effects in the future 
could be determined as certainly as could the coming revolu- 
tions and conjunctions of the stars. Out of this two-fold belief 
was evolved a complex system of divination, the origin of 
which was forgotten as men, believing in it, invented reasons 
for believing, pretending that their faith was founded on 
a long series of observations. The Chaldeans believed that in 
discovering the unceasing regularity of the celestial motions, 
they had found the very laws of life and they built upon this 
conviction a mass of absolutely rigid dogmas. But when ex- 
perience belied these dogmas, unable to realize the falsity 
of their presuppositions and to give up their faith in the 
divine stars, the astrologers invented new dogmas to explain 
the old ones, thus piling up a body of complicated and often 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 53 

contradictory doctrines that will ever be to the student a 
source of perplexity and astonishment. 

On its philosophical side astrology was a system of 
astral theology developed, not by [popular thought, but 
through the careful observations and speculations of learned 
priests and scholars. It was a purely Eastern science which 
came into being on the Chaldean plains and in the Nile 
valley. As far as we know, it was entirely unknown to any 
of the primitive Aryan races, from Hindostan to Scandin- 
avia. Astrology as a system of divination never gained a 
foothold in Greece during the brightest period of her in- 
tellectual life. But the dogma of astral divinity was zeal- 
ously maintained by the greatest of Greek philosophers. 
Plato, the great idealist, whose influence upon the theology 
of the ancient and even of the modern world was more 
profound than that of any other thinker, called the stars 
"visible gods" ranking them just below the supreme eternal 
Being ; and to Plato these celestial gods were infinitely sup- 
erior to the anthropomorphic gods of the popular religion, 
who resembled men in their passions and were superior to 
them only in beauty of form and in power. Aristotle de- 
fended with no less zeal the doctrine of the divinity of the 
stars, seeing in them eternal substances, principles of move- 
ment, and therefore divine beings. In the Hellenistic period, 
Zeno, the Stoic, and his followers proclaimed the supremacy 
of the sidereal divinities even more -strongly than the 
schools of Plato and Aristotle had done. The Stoics con- 
ceived the world as a great organism whose "sympathetic" 
forces constantly interacted upon one another, governed 
by Reason which was of the essence of ethereal Fire, the 
primordial substance of the universe. To the stars, the 
purest manifestation of the power of this ethereal sub- 
stance, were attributed the greatest influence and the lofti- 
est divine qualities. The Stoics developed the doctrine of 
fatalism, which is the inevitable outcome of faith in stel- 
lar influence on human life, to its consequences; yet they 
proved by facts that fatalism is not incompatible with ac- 



54 Studies in Language and Literature 

tive and virtuous living. By the end of the Roman imperial 
period astrology had transformed paganism, replacing the 
old society of Immortals who were scarcely superior to mor- 
tals, except in being exempted from old age and death, by 
faith in the eternal beings who ran their course in perfect 
harmony throughout the ages, whose power, regulated by 
the unvarying* celestial motions, extended over all the earth 
and determined the destiny of the whole human race. 

Astrology, as a science and a system of divination, ex- 
erted a profound influence over the mediaeval mind. No 
court was without its practicing astrologer and the univers- 
ities all had their professors of astrology. The practice of 
astrology was an essential part of the physician's pro- 
fession, and before prescribing for a patient it was thought 
quite as important to determine the positions of the planets 
as the nature of the disease. 1 Interesting evidence of this 
fact is found in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales where 
Chaucer speaks of the Doctour's knowledge and use of as- 
trology as if it were his chief excellence as a physician : 

"In al this world ne was ther noon him lyk 
To speke of phieik and of surgerye ; 
For he was grounded in astronomye. 
He kepte his pacient a ful greet del 
In houres, by his magik naturel. 
Wei coude he fortunen the ascendent 
Of his images for his pacient." 2 

Yet in spite of the esteem in which astrological div- 
ination was held by most people in the Middle Ages, Dante, 
the greatest exponent of the thought and learning of that 
period, shows practically no knowledge of the technical 
and practical side of astrology. When he refers to the 
specific effects of the planets it is only to those most famil- 
iarly known, and he nowhere uses such technical terms as 
"houses" or "aspects" of planets. But Dante, like the great 
philosophers of the earlier periods, was undoubtedly in- 

1 Mrs. John Evershed, Dante and the Early Astronomers, p. 200. 
^Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, A. 412-418. 



ASTRONOMICAL LORE IN CHAUCER 55 

fluenced by the philosophical doctrines of astrology, and 
a general belief in the influence of the celestial spheres up- 
on human life was deeply rooted in his mind. To him the 
ceaseless and harmonious movements of the celestial bodies 
were the manifestations and instruments of God's pro- 
vidence, and were ordained by the First Mover to govern the 
destinies of the earth and human life. 

We can see this conviction of Dante's with perfect 
certainty when we read the Divina Commedia. For Dante's 
poetry is highly subjective ; on every page his own personal 
thoughts and feelings are revealed quite openly. Chaucer's 
poetry, on the other hand, is objective; he tells us almost 
nothing directly about himself and what we learn of him 
in his writings is almost entirely by inference. Chaucer's 
frequent use of astrology in his poetry would make it hard 
to believe that he was not considerably influenced by its 
philosophical aspects, at least in the general way that Dante 
was. Part and parcel of the dramatic action in most of 
his poems is the idea of stellar influences. Yet we cannot 
assert, with the same assurance that we can say it of Dante, 
that Chaucer believed, even in a general way, in the in- 
fluence of the stars on human life. In Dante's poetry, as 
we have said, the poet himself is always before us. Chaucer, 
with Socratic irony, always makes it plain to the reader 
that his attitude is purely objective, that he is only the 
narrator of what he has seen or dreamed, only the copyist of 
another's story. Even when Chaucer makes himself one of 
the protagonists, as in the Hous of Fame and the Canter- 
bury Tales, it is only that his narrative may be the more 
convincing. He tells a story and makes its protagonists 
actually live before us, as individual men and women. It 
is possible to imagine all of his use of astrology in his 
poetry not as the reflection of his own faith in its cosmic 
philosophy, but the expression of his genius for under- 
standing people and truthfully describing life and character. 

Considerable discussion as to Chaucer's attitude to- 
wards astrology has been called forth by passages in which 



56 Studies in Language and Literature 

he speaks in words of scorn with regard to some of the 
practices and magic arts that were often used in con- 
nection with astrology. In the Astrolabe after describing 
somewhat at length the favorable and unfavorable positions 
of planets he says : 

"Natheles, thise ben observauncez of iudicial 
matiere and rytes of payens, in which my spirit 
ne hath no feith, ne no knowing of hir horos- 
copum." 1 

Again in the Franklin's Tale he speaks in a similar disdain- 
ful tone of astrological magic : 

"He him remembred that, upon a day, 
At Orliens in studie a book he say 
Of magik naturel, which his felawe, 
That was that tyme a bacheler of lawe, 
Al were he ther to lerne another craft, 
Had prively upon his desk y-laft; 
Which book spak muchel of the operaciouns, 
Touchinge the eighte and twenty mansiouns 
That longen to the mone, and swich folye, 
As in our dayes is not worth a flye : 
For holy chirches feith in our bileve 
Ne suffreth noon illusion us to greve." 2 
And elsewhere in the same tale he writes: 

"So atte laste he hath his tyme y-founde 
To maken his Iapes and his wreccednesse 
Of switch a supersticious cursednesse." 3 

Here follows a long description of the clerk's instruments 
and astrological observances, ending in the lines 

"For swiche illusiouns and swiche meschaunces 
As hethen folk used in thilke dayes; 
For which no lenger maked he delayes, 
But thurgh his magik, for a wyke or tweye, 
It seemed that alle the rokkes were aweye." 4 

Mi. 4. 36-39. 
2 F. 1123-34. 
3F. 1270-72. 
*F. 1285-96. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 57 

On the strength of these passages Professor T. R. 
Lounsbury 1 holds that Chaucer was far ahead of most 
of his contemporaries in his attitude toward the supersti- 
tious practices connected with the astrology of his day ; that 
his attitude toward judicial astrology was one of total dis- 
belief and scorn; and he even goes so far as to say that 
Chaucer was guilty of a breach of artistic workmanship in 
expressing his disbelief so scornfully in a tale in which the 
very climax of the dramatic action depends upon a feat of 
astrological magic. 

A more satisfactory interpretation of the passages 
quoted above is advanced by Professor J. S. P. Tatlock, 2 
who shows that Chaucer has taken great pains to place 
the setting of the Franklin's Tale in ancient times and that 
he, in common with most of the educated men of his day, 
disapproved of the practices (except sometimes when em- 
ployed for good purposes as, e. g. in the physician's pro- 
fession) and the practicians of judicial astrology in his own 
day, but thought of the feats and observances of astrological 
magic as having been possible and efficacious in ancient 
times. According to this view Chaucer's attitude was one of 
disapproval rather than disbelief, and his disapproval was 
not for the general theory of astrology, but for the shady 
observances and quackery connected with its application to 
the problems of life in his time. It is to be noted, further, 
that wherever Chaucer speaks in the strongest terms against 
astrological observances he also uses religious language. 
This fact may point to a wise caution on his part lest his 
evident interest in astrology, (which was closely associated 
with magic, and hence, indirectly, with sorcery) might in- 
volve him in difficulties with Mother Church; and, as Pro- 
fessor Tatlock has pointed out, there is no reason to sup- 
pose that Chaucer's religious expressions in these passages 
are insincere. 



^Studies in Chaucer, vol. ii. 498, ff. 

2 "The Scene of The Franklin's Tale Visited," Chaucer Society 
Publications, (1914) ; "Astrology and Magic in Chaucer's Franklin's 
Tale;" Kittredge Anniversary Papers (1913). 



58 Studies in Language and Literature 

The Franklin's Tale falls in the group of tales called by 
Professor Kittredge the "Marriage Group," 1 that in which 
the Wife of Bath is the most conspicuous figure. The Wife 
of Bath's tale had aroused a rather heated controversy 
among a number of the Canterbury pilgrims on the subject 
of the respective duties and relations of wives and husbands. 
If the critics have been right in placing the Franklin's Tale 
where they do, it was Chaucer's purpose to have the Frank- 
lin soothe the ruffled feelings of certain members of the 
party by telling a tale in which a husband (and wife), a 
a squire, and a clerk, all prove themselves capable of truly 
generous behavior. If the tale was to accomplish its 
purpose the clerk must accomplish his magic feat of re- 
moving the rocks from the coast of Brittany, and must in 
the end generously refuse to accept pay from the squire 
when he learned that the latter had been too magnanimous 
to profit from his services. By setting the tale in pagan 
times, Chaucer was able to express the scorn he felt for 
certain superstitious practices in his own time without de- 
basing one of his chief characters, one of the three rivals 
in magnanimity, and so spoiling the noble temper of the 
story and entirely defeating its purpose. 

Thus the astrological passages in the Franklin's Tale do 
not suggest total disbelief in astrology on Chaucer's part, 
and much less do they show him to have been lacking in 
true artistic sense. Probably his attitude toward astrology 
was about this: he was very much interested in it, per- 
haps in much the same way that Dante was, because of 
the philosophical ideas at the basis of astrology and out of 
curiosity as to the problems of free will, providence, and 
so on, that naturally arose from it. For the shady prac- 
tices and quackery connected with its use in his own day he 
had nothing but scorn. 

^ But while Chaucer was at one with the educated men 
of his century in his attitude toward astrology, and with 
them had a strong distaste for certain aspects of judicial 

^Chaucer and His Poetry, p. 186, ff. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 

astrology, nevertheless he made wide use of the greater faith 
of the majority of people of his time in portraying char- 
acter in his poetry. For men's ideas and beliefs constitute 
a very important part of their character, and Chaucer knew 
this very well. Men believed that whatever happened to 
them, whether fortunate or unfortunate, could in some 
way be traced to the influence of the stars, the agents and 
instruments of destiny. The configuration of the heavens 
at the moment of one's birth was considered especially im- 
portant, since the positions and interrelations of the differ- 
ent celestial bodies at this time could determine the most 
momentous events of one's life. Now the nature of the in- 
fluence exerted by the different stars, especially the planets 
and zodiacal constellations, varied greatly./ 'Mars and Ven- 
us, for instance, bestowed vastly different qualities upon 
the soul that was coming into being. Moreover, the power 
exerted by a planet or constellation fluctuated consider- 
ably according to its position. Each planet had in the 
zodiac a position of greatest and a position of least power 
called its "exaltation' and 'depression.' Furthermore, the 
'aspect' or angular distance of one planet from another 
altered its influence in various ways. If Mars and Jupiter, 
for instance, were in trine or sextile aspect the portent was 
favorable, if in opposition, it was unfavorable. 1 These ideas 
are frequently expressed in Chaucer, when the characters 
seek to understand their misfortunes or to justify their 
conduct by tracing them back to the determinations of the 
heavens at their birth. When Palamon and Arcite have been 
thrown into prison the latter pleads with his companion to 
have patience; this misfortune was fixed upon them at the 
time of their birth by the disposition of the planets and 
constellations, and complaining is of no avail : / 
" Tor Goddes love, tak al in pacience 

Our prisoun, for it may non other be ; 

Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee. 

Som wikke aspect or disposicioun 

Of Saturne, by sum constellacioun 

x The principal aspects were conjunction, sextile, quartile, trine, 
and opposition, corresponding respectively to the angular distances 0°, 
60° 90°, 120° and 180°. 



60 Studies in Language and Literature 

Hath yeven us this, al-though we hadde it sworn; 
So stood the heven whan that we were born; 
We moste endure it : this is the short and pleyn.' ' n 

In the Man of Lawes Tale the effect of the stars at the 
time of a man's nativity is discussed somewhat at length. 
The Man of Law predicts the fate of the sultan by saying 
that the destiny written in the stars had perhaps allotted to 
him death through love: 

"Paraventure in thilke large book 
Which that men clepe the heven, y-writen was 
With sterres, whan that he his birthe took, 
That he for love shulde han his deeth, alias ! 
For in the sterres, clerer than is glas, 
Is writen ,god wot, who-so coude it rede, 
The deeth of every man, withouten drede." 2 

Then he mentions the names of various ancient heroes 
whose death, he says was written in the stars "er they were 
born: ,, 

"In sterres, many a winter ther-biforn, 
Was written the deeth of Ector, Achilles, 
Of Pompey, Iulius, er they were born ; 
The stryf of Thebes ; and of Ercules, 
Of Sampson, Turnus, and of Socrates 
The deeth; but mennes wittes been so dulle, 
That no wight can wel rede it atte fulle." 3 

When Criseyde learns that she is to be sent to the 
Greeks in exchange for Antenor she attributes her misfor- 
tune to the stars : 

" 'Alas !' quod she, 'out of this regioun 
I, woful wrecche and infortuned wight, 
And born in corsed constellacioun, 
Mot goon, and thus departen fro my knight ;' " 4 



iKnightes Tale, A. 1084-91. 

*Tale of the Man of Lawe, B. 190-196. 

Moid, 197-203. 

*Troilus and Criseyde, IV. 743-746. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 61 

In the Legend of Good Women we are told that Hyperm- 
nestra was "born to all good things" or qualities, and then 
the various influences of the particular planets upon her 
destiny are mentioned: 

"The whiche child, of hir nativitee, 
To alle gode thewes born was she, 
As lyked to the goddes, or she was born, 
That of the shef e she sholde be the corn ; 
The Wirdes, that we clepen Destinee, 
Hath shapen her that she mot nedes be 
Pitouse, sadde, wyse, and trewe as steel; 
And to this woman hit accordeth weel. 
For, though that Venus yaf her great beautee, 
With Jupiter compouned so was she 
That conscience, trouthe, and dreed of shame, 
And of hir wyfhood for to keep her name, 
This, thoughte her, was felicitee as here. 
And rede Mars was, that tyme of the yere, 
So feble, that his malice is him raft, 
Repressed hath Venus his cruel craft; 
What with Venus and other oppressioun 
Of houses, Mars his venim is adoun, 
That Ypermistra dar nat handle a knyf 
In malice, thogh she sholde lese her lyf. 
But natheles ,as heven gan tho turne, 
To badde aspectes hath she of Saturne, 
That made her for to deyen in prisoun, 
As I shal after make mencioun," 1 

The purpose of this astrological passage is plainly to 
show why Hypermnestra was doomed to die in prison. The 
qualities given her by the planets, as shown by her horos- 
cope, were such that she was unable to violate a wife's duty 
and kill her husband in order to save her own life. 2 Venus 
gave her great beauty and was also influential in repressing 

1IX. 2576-2599. 

2 Her father, Egistes, because he feared her husband, bade her kill 
him by cutting his throat, and threatened her with death if she refused. 



62 Studies in Language and Literature 

the influence of Mars who would have given her fighting 
qualities if his influence had been strong. The myth of the 
amour between Venus and Mars, which Chaucer makes the 
basis of his poem the Compleynt of Mars, would explain 
why Venus was able to influence Mars in this way. The 
feeble influence of Mars at Hypermnestra's nativity is ac- 
counted for also in another way. His influence is feeble 
because of the time of year and through the "oppressioun 
of houses" both of which amount to the same thing, namely, 
a position in the zodiac in which his power is at a min- 
imum. 1 The influence of Jupiter, we are told,was to give 
Hypermnestra conscience, truth, and wifely loyalty. That 
of Saturn was evil and the cause of her death in prison. 
The specific influences of Saturn are mentioned in de- 
tail in the Knightes Tale. Almost all the ills imaginable 
are attributable to his power: 

" 'My dere doghter Venus,' quod Saturne, 
'My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne, 

Hath more power than wot any man. 

Myn is the drenching in the see so wan ; 

Myn is the prison in the derke cote ; 

Myn is the strangling and hanging by the throte ; 

The murmure, and the cherles rebelling, 

The groyning, and the pryvee empoysoning; 

I do vengeance and pleyn correccioun 

Whyl I dwelle in the signe of the leoun. 

Myn is the ruine of the hye halles, 

The falling of the toures and of the walles 



1 In astrology the signs of the zodiac were called 'houses' or 'man- 
sions' and each was assigned to a particular planet. When a planet 
was in its house or mansion, its power was very great. Each of the 
planets had also a sign called its 'exaltation' and in this sign its power 
was greatest of all. The sign opposite a planet's mansion was called 
its 'fall' and that opposite its exaltation was called its 'depression'; 
these were the positions of least influence. Mars' mansions were Aries 
and Scorpio; his exaltation, Capricornus; his fall. Libra and Taurus, 
and his depression, Cancer. At the time of Hypermnestra's birth, then, 
we may suppose that Mars was in Libra, Taurus or in Cancer. If he 
was in Libra or Taurus, his influence would be suppressed by Venus, 
as these signs were in her mansions. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 63 

Up-on the mynour or the carpenter. 
I slow Sampsoun in shaking- the piler ; 
And rnyne be the maladyes colde, 
The derke tresons, and the castes olde; 
My loking is the fader of pestilence.' " x 

In the line, 

"Myn is the prison in the derke cote;" 
imprisonment is for the second time attributed to Saturn's 
influence. In an earlier passage in the Knight es Tale 2 , (see 
p, 59) it is suggested when Palamon and Arcite's im- 
prisonment is said to be due to 'some wicked aspect or dis- 
position of Saturn' at the time of their birth. Later in the 
story Palamon specifically states that his imprisonment is 
through Saturn: 

"But I mot been in prison thurgh Saturne," 3 

That Mars and Saturn were generally regarded as 
planets of evil influence is shown by a passage in the Astro- 
labe. Chaucer has just explained what the 'ascendant', 
means in astrology. It is that degree of the zodiac that at 
the given time is seen upon the eastern horizon. Now, 
Chaucer says, the ascendant may be 'fortunate or unfor- 
tunate,' thus: 

"a fortunat ascendent 
clepen they whan that no wykkid planete, as Sat- 
urne or Mars, or elles the Tail of the Dragoun, 
is in the house of the assendent, ne that no wikked 
planets have non aspects of enemite up-on the 
assendent ;" 4 

The Wife of Bath attributes the two principal qualities 
of her disposition, amorousness and pugnaciousness, to the 
planets Venus and Mars : 

iKnightes Tale, A. 2453-2469. 

mid. 1087-1088. 

-Ibid. 1328. 

^Astrolabe, ii. 4. 21-25. The term "hous" is here used in a diff- 
erent sense from that in the passage explained above, p. 120. The whole 
heavens were divided into twelve portions by great circles passing 
through the north and south points of the horizon. The one of 
these just rising was called the 'house of the ascendant.' 



64 Studies in Language and Literature 

"For certes, I am al Venerien 
In felinge, and myn herte is Marcien. 
Venus me yaf my lust, my likerousnesse, 
And Mars yaf me my sturdy hardinesse. 
Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars ther-inne. 
Alias ! alias ! that ever love was sinne ! 
I folwed ay myn inclinacioun 
By vertu of my constellacioun." 1 

A little later in her Prologue the Wife contrasts the in- 
fluences of Mercury and Venus. As a jibe at the Clerk 
who was in the company of Canterbury pilgrims she has just 
said that clerks cannot possibly speak well of wives, and 
that women could tell tales of clerks if they would. She 
upholds her statement thus: Wives are the children of 
Venus, clerks, of Mercury, two planets that are 'in their 
working full contrarious:' 

"The children of Mercurie and of Venus 
Been in hir wirking f ul contrarious ; 
Mercurie loveth wisdom and science, 
And Venus loveth ryot and dispence. 
And, for hir diverse disposicioun, 
Ech falleth in otheres exaltacioun ; 
And thus, got woot ! Mercurie is desolat 
In Pisces, wher Venus is exaltat ; 
And Venus falleth ther Mercurie is reysed ; 
Therefore no womman of no clerk is preysed."- 

Venus has her exaltation in the sign in which Mercury 
has his depression. Therefore the two signs have opposite 
virtues and influences, and the children of one can see little 
good in the children of the other. 

We have seen how the stars were supposed to control 
human destiny by bestowing certain qualities upon souls at 
birth. We shall next consider how they were thought to 

1 Wife of Bath's Prologue, D. 609-616. The line 
"Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars ther-inne" 
means that at the time of her birth Taurus was just rising in the 
east and Mars was in this sign, and as Taurus was the mansion of 
Venus, the influences of the two planets would be mingled. 
2D. 697-706. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 65 

influence men more indirectly, through their effects on ter- 
restrial events. Certain positions of the heavenly bodies 
with regard to one another could cause heavy rains. The 
clerk in the Miller es Tale predicts a great rain through ob- 
servation of the moon's position: 

" 'Now John,' quod Nicholas, 'I wol nat lye ; 
I have y-f ounde in myn astrologye, 
As I have loked in the mone bright, 
That now, a Monday next, at quarter-night, 
Shal faile a reyn and that so wilde and wood, 
That half so greet was never Noes flood.' " x 

Such predictions as this were, however, by no means always 
believed in even by uneducated people. In this case, for 
the purposes of the story, the flood does not take* place. 
The carpenter, John, is taken in because the story requires 
it, but Nicholas is a quack pure and simple, and of course the 
Miller who tells the story has no delusions. 

In Troilus and Criseyde we are told that the moon's 
conjunction with Jupiter and Saturn caused a heavy rain. 
Pandarus had the day before suspected that there was to be 
rain from the condition of the moon : 

"Right sone upon the chaunging of the mone, 
Whan lightles is the world a night or tweyne, 
And that the welken shoop him for to reyne, 
He streight a-morwe un-to his nece wente ;" 2 
and on the next night the rain came : 

"The bente mone with hir homes pale, 
Saturne, and love, in Cancro ioyned were, 
That swich a rayn from hevene gan avale, 
That every maner womman that was there 
Hadde of that smoky reyn a verray fere ;" 3 

Perhaps the moon alone in Cancer, which was her man- 
sion, would have caused a rain, and it was the additional 
presence of Saturn and Jupiter that made it such a heavy 
downpour. 

iA. 3513-3518. 
2III. 549-552. 
sill. 624-628. 



66 Studies in Language and Literature 

Chaucer humorously makes use of this astrological 
superstition that the planets cause rains in the Lenvoy a 
Scogan : 

" To-broken been the statuts hye in hevene 
That creat were eternally to dure, 
Sith that I see the brighte goddes sevene 
Mow wepe and wayle, and passioun endure, 
As may in erthe a mortal creature. 
Alias, fro whennes may this thing procede ? 
Of whiche errour I deye almost for drede." 1 

Here it is not the planets' positions that cause the rain, 
but the planets are weeping as mortals do and their tears 
are the rain. In the next stanza we learn that even Venus, 
from whose sphere divine law once decreed no tear should 
ever fall, is weeping so that mortals are about to be 
drenched. And it is all Scogan's fault! 

"By worde eterne whylom was hit shape 
That fro the fifte cercle, in no manere, 
Ne mighte a drope of teres doun escape. 
But now so wepeth Venus in hir spere, 
That with hir teres she wol drenche us here. 
Alias ! Scogan ! this is for thyn offence ! 
Thou causest this deluge of pestilence/' 2 

So the ultimate cause of the rain was Scogan's offense. 
And in the next stanza we learn what that offence was. In- 
stead of vowing to serve his lady forever, though his love 
is unrequited, Scogan has rebelled against the law of love : 

"Hast thou not seyd, in blaspheme of this goddes, 
Through pryde, or through thy grete rakelnesse, 
Sv/ich thing as in the lawe of love f orbode is ? 
That, for thy lady saw nat thy distresse, 
Therefor thou yave hir up at Michelmesse! ' 

I have said that Chaucer makes wide use of the astro- 
logical beliefs of his century in portraying character and 



il-7. 

28-14. 

315-19. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 67 

have shown how some of the strange astrological ideas of the 
people of his time are reflected in Chaucer's poetry. It 
remains to consider somewhat more closely the relations 
between astrological faith and conduct, and Chaucer's ap- 
plication of these relations to the dramatic action in his 
poems. 

The inevitable logical outcome of astrological faith is 
the doctrine of Necessity. The invariability of the celestial 
motions suggested to early astrologers that there must be 
a higher power transcending and controlling them, and this 
power could be none other than Necessity. But, since the 
stars by their movements and positions were the regulators 
of mundane events and human affairs, it followed that hu- 
man destiny on the earth was also under the sway of this 
relentless power of Necessity or Fate. Now it was the 
Stoics alone who developed a thorough-going fatalism and at 
the same time made it consistent with practical life and 
virtue. They taught that man could best find himself in 
complete submission to the divine law of destiny. The 
early Babylonian astrologers who originated the doctrine of 
necessity did not develop it to its logical consequences. Rea- 
soning from certain very unusual occurrences that some- 
times took place in the heavens, such as the appearance of 
comets, meteors and falling stars, they reached the con- 
clusion that divine will at times arbitrarily interfered in 
the destined course of nature. So priests foretold future 
events from the configuration of the heavens, but pro- 
fessed ability to ward off threatened evils by spells and in- 
cantations, or, by purifications and sacrifices, to make the 
promised blessings more secure. 

Now the fatalism of Chaucer's characters is something 
like this. The general belief in the determination of human 
destiny by Fortune or Necessity is present and is expressed 
usually at moments of deep despair, when the longings of 
the heart and the struggles of the will have been relentlessly 
thwarted. When the Trojans decree that Criseyde must 
go to the Greeks in exchange for Antenor, Troilus pleads 
with Fortune: 



68 Studies in Language and Literature 

"Than seyde he thus, 'Fortune! alias the whyle! 
What have I doon, what have I thus a-gilt? 
How mightestow for reuthe me bigyle? 
Is ther no grace, and shall I thus be spilt? 
Shal thus Criseyde awey, for that thou wilt ? 
Alias ! how maystow in thyn herte finde 
To been to me thus cruel and unkinde? 



Alias ! Fortune ! if that my lyf in Ioye 
Displesed hadde un-to thy foule envye, 
Why ne haddestow my fader, king of Troye, 
By-raft the lyf, or doon my bretheren dye, 
Or slayn my-self , that thus compleyne and crye, 
I, combre-world, that may of no-thing serve, 
But ever dye, and never fulle sterve?' "* 

But there is present, too, in spite of all obstacles and 
defeats, an undying hope that somehow — by prayers and 
sacrifices to the celestial powers, or by the choice of astro- 
logically favorable times of doing things — that somehow the 
course of human lives, mapped out at birth by the stars 
under the control of relentless destfny, may be altered. So 
the characters in Chaucer's poems pray to the orbs of the 
sky to help in their undertakings. The love-lorn Troilus 
undertakes scarcely a single act without first beseeching 
some one of the celestial powers for help. When he has con- 
fessed his love to Pandarus and the latter has promised to 
help him, Troilus prays to Venus : 

" 'Now blisful Venus helpe, er that I sterve, 
Of thee, Pandare, I may som thank deserve/ " 2 

and when the first step has been taken and he knows that 
Criseyde is not ill disposed to be his friend at least, he 
praises Venus, looking up to her as a flower to the sun : 

^-Troilus and Criseyde, IV. 260-266; 274-280. 
21. 1014-15. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 69 

"But right as floures, thorugh the colde of night 
Y-closed, stoupen on hir stalkes lowe, 
Redressen hem a-yein the sonne bright, 
And spreden on hir kinde cours by rowe ; 
Right so gan tho his eyen up to throwe 
This Troilus, and seyde, '0 Venus dere, 
Thy might, thy grace, y-heried be it here !' ' n 

When Troilus is about to undertake a step that will either 
win or lose Criseyde he prays to all the planetary gods, but 
especially to Venus, begging her to overcome by her aid 
whatever evil influences the planets exercised over him in his 
birth : 

" 'Yit blisf ul Venus, this night thou me enspyre,' 
Quod Troilus, 'as wis as I thee serve, 
And ever bet and bet shal, til I sterve. 
And if I hadde, Venus ful of murthe, 
Aspectes badde of Mars or of Saturne, 
Or thou combust- or let were in my birthe, 
Thy fader prey al thilke harm disturne.' " ;; 

Troilus does not forget to praise Venus when Criseyde is 
won at last : 

'Than seyde he thus, '0, Love, O, Charitee, 
Thy moder eek, Citherea the swete, 
After thy-self next heried be she, 
Venus mene I, the wel-willy planete ;' " 4 

And after Criseyde has gone away to the Greeks, it is to 
Venus still that the lover utters his lament and prayer, say- 
ing that without the guidance of her beams he is lost : 

ill. 967-973. 

2 A planet was said to be combust when its light was extinguished 
by proximity to the sun. When Venus and Mercury were 'combust' 
their influence was lost, 

3 III. 712-718 . It is sometimes hard to determine whether the 
beings prayed to are pagan gods and goddesses or heavenly bodies. 
This passage makes it clear that the planets were identified with the 
pagan divinities. In the rest of this prayer Troilus addresses Mars, 
Mercury, Jupiter, etc., as gods, referring in each case to some love 
affair, from ancient myth, that may win the god's sympathy and help. 

4 III. 1254-1257. The "wel-willy planete" means the propitious 
or favorable one. 



70 Studies in Language and Literature 

" '0 sterre, of which I lost have al the light, 
With herte soor wel oughte I to bewayle, 
That ever derk in torment, night by night, 
Toward my deeth with wind in stere I sayle; 
For which the tenthe night if that I f ayle 
The gyding of thy bemes brighte an houre, 
My ship and me Caribdis wol devoure:' m 

Another effect of astrological faith on conduct was the 
choice of times for doing things of importance with refer- 
ence to astrological conditions. When a man wished to set 
out on any enterprise of importance he very often con- 
sulted the positions of the stars to see if the time was pro- 
pitious. Thus in the Squieres Tale it is said that the maker 
of the horse of brass 

"wayted many a constellacioun, 
Er he had doon this operacioun ;" 2 

that is, he waited carefully for the moment when the stars 
would be in the most propitious position, so that his under- 
taking would have the greatest possible chance of success. 
Pandarus goes to his niece Criseyde to plead for Troilus at 
a time when the moon is favorably situated in the heavens : 

"And gan to calle, and dresse him up to ryse, 
Remembringe him his erand was to done 
From Troilus, and eek his greet empryse; 
And caste and knew in good plyt was the mone — 
To doon viage, and took his wey ful sone 
Un-to his neces paleys ther bi-syde." 3 

The kind of fatalism that Chaucer's characters, as a 
rule, represent is well illustrated in the story of Palamon and 
Arcite, told by the Knight in the Canterbury Tales. These 
two young nobles of Thebes, cousins by relationship, are 
captured by Theseus, king of Athens, and imprisoned in 
the tower of his palace. From the window of the tower 

X V. 638-644. Troilus needs the aid of Venus especially on the 
tenth night after Criseyde's departure, because she had promised 
to return on that night. 

2F. 129-130. 

311. 71-76. 



/ 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 71 

Palamon espies the king's beautiful sister Emelye walking 
in the garden and instantly falls in love. Arcite, seeing 
his cousin's sudden pallor and hearing his exclamation 
which, Chaucer says, sounded 

"As though he stongen were un-to the herte." 1 
thinks that Palamon is complaining because of his imprison- 
ment and urges him to bear in patience the decree of the 
heavens : 

" Tor Goddes love, tak al in pacience 
Our prisoun, for it may non other be ; 
Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee. 
Som wikke aspect or disposicioun 
Of Saturne, by sum constellacioun, 
Hath yeven us this, al-though we hadde it sworn ; 
So stood the heven whan that we were born ; 
We moste endure it ; this is the short and pleyn.' " 2 

This is the doctrine of Necessity, and it suggests the 
Stoic virtue of submission to fate ; yet Arcite's attitude to- 
word his misfortune is not truly stoic, for there is none of 
that joy in submission here that the Stoic felt in surrender- 
ing himself to the will of the powers above. Arcite would 
resist fate if he could, 

Palamon explains the cause of his woe and when Arcite 
looks out and sees Emelye he too falls a victim to love. Then 
Palamon knits his brows in righteous indignation./ Did he 
not love the beautiful lady first and trust his secret to his 
cousin and sworn brother? And was it not Arcite's duty 
and solemn pledge to help and not hinder him in his love? 
Arcite's defence shows that the fatalism that dominates his 
thought is a fatalism that excuses him for doing as he 
pleases : Love knows no law, but is a law unto itself. There- 
fore he must needs love Emelye. 

"Wostow nat wel the olde clerkes sawe, 
That 'who shal yeve a lover any lawe?' 
Love is a gretter lawe, by my pan, 



^Knightes Tale, A. 1079. 
2 Ibid. 1084-1091. 



72 Studies in Language and Literature 

Than may be yeve to any erthly man. 

And therefore positif lawe and swich decree 

Is broke al-day for love, in ech degree. 

A man moot nedes love, maugree his heed." 1 

When Arcite is released from prison but banished from 
Athens with the threat of death should he return, both men 
are utterly unhappy, Arcite, because he can no longer see 
Emelye, and Palamon because he fears that Arcite will re- 
turn to Athens with a band of kinsmen to aid him, and carry 
off Emelye by force. After Arcite has gone Palamon re- 
proaches the gods for determining the destiny of men so 
irrevocably without consulting their wishes or their deserts : 

" '0 cruel goddes, that governe 
This world with binding of your word eterne, 
And wryten in the table of athamaunt 
Your parlement, and your eterne graunt, 
What is mankinde more un-to yow holde 
Than is the sheep, that rouketh in the folde?' " 2 

Many a man, Palamon says, suffers sickness, imprison- 
ment and other misfortunes unjustly because of the inex- 
orable destiny imposed upon him by the gods. Even the 
lot of the beasts is better, for they do as they will and have 
nothing to suffer for it after death; whereas man must 
suffer both in this life and the next. This, surely, is not 
willing submission to fate. 

After some years Palamon escapes from prison and 
encounters Arcite, who has returned in disguise and become 
Theseus' chief squire. They arrange to settle their differ- 
ences by a duel next day. But destiny was guiding Theseus' 
conduct too, so the narrator of the story says, and was so 
powerful that it caused a coincidence that might not happen 
again in a thousand years: 

"The destinee, ministre general, 
That executeth in the world over-al 



1A. 1163-69. 
2 A. 1303-8. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 73 

The purveyaunce, that God hath seyn biforn, 

So strong it is, that, though the world had sworn 

The contrarie of a thing, by ye or nay, 

Yet somtyme it shal fallen on a day 

That falleth nat eft with-inne a thousand yere. 

For certeinly, our appetytes here, 

Be it of werre, or pees, or hate, or love, 

Al is this reuled by the sighte above." 1 

Theseus goes hunting and with him, the queen and 
Emelye. They of course interrupt the duel between Pala- 
mon and Arcite. Through the intercession of the two 
women the duelists are pardoned and it is arranged that 
they settle their dispute by a tournament set for about a 
year later. 

On the morning before the tournament Palamon, Arcite, 
and Emelye all go, at different hours, to pray and sacrifice to 
their respective patron deities. The times of their prayers 
are chosen according to astrological considerations, each 
going to pray in the hour 2 that was considered sacred to 
the planet with which his patron deity was identified. Pal- 
amon prays to Venus only that he may win his love, whether 
by victory or defeat in the tournament makes no difference 
to him. After his sacrifices are completed, the statute of 
Venus shakes and Palamon, regarding this as a favorable 
sign goes away with glad heart. Arcite prays Mars for vic- 
tory and is answered by a portent even more favorable than 
that given to Palamon. Not only does the statue of Mars 
tremble so that his coat of mail resounds, but the very doors 
of the temple shake, the fire on the altar burns more brightly 
and Arcite hears the word "Victory" uttered in a low dim 
murmur. Emelye does not want to be given in marriage 
to any man and so she prays to Diana 3 , as the protectress of 

*A. 1663-1672. This is the mediaeval Christian idea of destiny or 
the fore-knowledge of God, and is appropriately uttered here by the 
Knight. 

2 A. 2209 ff; 2271 ff ; 2367 ff. 

3 Diana was called Luna (or the Moon) in heaven, on earth, Diana 
or Lucina, and in hell, Proserpina. 



74 Studies in Language and Literature 

maidenhood, to keep her a maid. Diana, the goddess, ap- 
pears in her characteristic form as a huntress and tells 
Emelye that the gods have decreed her marriage either to 
Palamon or to Arcite, but that it cannot yet be revealed to 
which one she is to be given. 

But now there is trouble in heaven. Venus has pro- 
mised that Falamon shall have his love, and Mars has pro- 
mised Arcite the victory. How are both promises to be ful- 
filled ? Chaucer humorously expresses the dilemma thus : 

"And richt anon swich stryf ther is bigonne 
For thilke graunting, in the hevene above, 
Bitwixe Venus, the goddesse of love, 
And Mars, the sterne god armipotente, 
That lupiter was bisy it to stente ; 
Til that the pale Saturnus the colde, 
That knew so manye of aventures olde, 
Fond in his old experience an art, 
That he ful sone hath plesed every part." 1 

We had almost forgotten that all the gods to whom prayers 
have been uttered and sacrifices offered were anything more 
than pagan gods. But now, by the reference to Saturn, 
"the pale Saturnus the colde" suggesting the dimness of 
his appearance in the sky, we are reminded that these gods 
are also planets. 

But, to resume the story, Saturn finds the remedy for 
the embarrassing situation. He rehearses his powers 
and then tells Venus that her knight shall have his lady, 
but that Mars shall be able to help his knight also. 

" 'My dere doghter Venus,' quod Saturne, 
'My cours, that hath so wyde for to turne, 
Hath more power that wot any man. 



Now weep namore, I shal doon diligence 
That Palamon, that is thyn owne knight, 
Shal have his lady, as thou hast him hight. 



*A. 2438-2446. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 75 

Though Mars shal helpe his knight, yet nathelees 
Bitwixe yow ther moot be som tyme pees, 
Al be ye noght of o complexioun, 
That causeth al day swich divisioun. , ' n 

When the appointed time for the tourney arrives, in 
order that no means of securing the god's favor and so 
assuring success may be left untried, Arcite, with his 
knights, enters through the gate of Mars, his patron deity, 
and Palamon through that of Venus. Palamon is defeated 
in the fight but Saturn fulfills his promise to Venus by in- 
ducing Pluto to send an omen which frightens Arcite's horse 
causing an accident in which Arcite is mortally injured. 
In the end Palamon wins Emelye. 

Although the scene of this story is laid in ancient 
Athens, the characters are plainly mediaeval knights and 
ladies. Throughout the poem, as in many of Chaucer's 
writings, there is a curious mingling of pagan and Christian 
elements, a strange juxtaposition of astrological notions, 
Greek anthropomorphism and mediaeval Christian phil- 
osophy. But pervading the whole is the idea of determin- 
ism, of the inability of the human will to struggle success- 
fully against the destiny imposed by the powers of heaven, 
or against the capricious wills of the gods. 

Chaucer had too keen a sense of humor, too sympathetic 
an outlook on life not to see the irony in the ceaseless 
spectacle of mankind dashing itself against the relentless 
wall of circumstances, fate, or what you will, in undying 
hope of attaining the unattainable. He saw the humor in 
this maelstrom of human endeavor — and he saw the tragedy 
too. The Knighies Tale presents largely, I think, the hum- 
orous side of it, Troilus and Criseyde, the tragic, although 
there is some tragedy in the Knighies Tale and some comedy 
in Troilus. 

It was fate that Troilus should love Criseyde, that he 
should win her love for a time, and that in the end he 

*A. 2453-2455; 2470-2476. 



76 Studies in Language and Literature 

should be deserted by her. From the very first line of the 
poem we know that he is doomed to sorrow : 

"The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, 
That was the king Priamus sone of Troye, 
In lovinge, how his aventures fellen 
Fro wo to wele, and after out of loye, 

My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye." 1 

The tragedy of Troilus is also the tragedy of Criseyde, for 
even at the moment of forsaking Troilus for Diomede she 
is deeply unhappy over her unfaithfulness ; but circumstance 
is as much to blame as her own yielding nature, for Troilus* 
fate is bound up with the inexorable doom of Troy, and she 
could not return to him if she would. 

There is no doubt that Chaucer feels the tragedy of the 
story as he writes. In his proem to the first book he invokes 
one of the furies to aid him in his task : 

"Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte 
Thise wof ul vers, that wepen as I wryte !" 2 

Throughout the poem he disclaims responsibility for what 
he narrates, saying that he is simply following his author 
and that, once begun, somehow he must keep on. In the 
proem to the second book he says : 

"Wherefore I nil have neither thank ne blame 
Of al this werk, but pray you mekely, 
Disblameth me, if any word be lame, 
For as myn auctor seyde, so seye I." 8 

and concludes the proem with the words, — 

"but sin I have begonne, 
Myn auctor shal I folwen, if I conne." 4 

When Fortune turns her face away from Troilus, and Chau- 
cer must tell of the loss of Criseyde his heart bleeds and 
his pen trembles with dread of what he must write : 

"But al to litel, weylawey the whyle, 
Lasteth swich loye, y-thonked be Fortune! 

1 Troilus and Criseyde, I. 1-5. 
mid. I. 6-7. 
311. 15-18. 
411. 48-49. 



Astronomical Lore in Chaucer 77 

That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle, 
And can to foles so hir song entune, 
That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune; 
And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe, 
Than laugheth she, and maketh him the raowe. 

From Troilus she gan hir brighte face 
Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede, 
But caste him clene oute of his lady grace, 
And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede ; 
For which right now myn herte ginneth blede, 
And now my penne, alias ! with which I wryte, 
Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte." 1 

Chaucer tells of Criseyde's faithlessness reluctantly, remind- 
ing the reader often that so the story has it : 

"And after this the story telleth us, 

That she him yaf the f aire baye stede, 

The which she ones wan of Troilus; 
And eek a broche (and that was litel nede) 

That Troilus was, she yaf this Diomede. 

And eek, the bet from sorwe him to releve, 

She made him were a pencel of hir sieve. 

I finde eek in the stories elles-where, 
Whan through the body hurt was Diomede 
Of Troilus, tho weep she many a tere, 
Whan that she saugh his wyde woundes blede ; 
And that he took to kepen him good hede, 
And for to hele him of his sorwes smerte, 
Men seyn, I not, that she yaf him hir herte." 2 

And in the end for very pity he tries to excuse her : 

"Ne me ne list this sely womman chyde 
Ferther than the story wol devyse, 
Hir name, alias ! is publisshed so wyde, 
That for hir gilt it oughte y-now suffyse. 
And if I mighte excuse hir any wyse, 



iIV. 1-14. 
2 V. 1037-1050. 



78 Studies in Language and Literature 

For she so sory was for hir untrouthe, 
Y-wis, I wolde excuse hir yet for routhe." 1 

We have said that Chaucer's attitude toward the phil- 
osophical aspects of astrology is hard to determine because 
in most of his poems he takes an impersonal ironic point 
of view towards the actions he describes or the ideas he 
presents. His attitude toward the idea of destiny is not 
so hard to determine. Fortune, the executrix of the fates 
through the influence of the heavens rules men's lives ; they 
are the herdsmen, we are their flocks: 

"But 0, Fortune, executrice of wierdes, 
influences of thise hevenes hye! 
Soth is, that, under god, ye ben our hierdes, 
Though to us bestes been the causes wrye." 2 

Perhaps Chaucer did not mean this literally. But one is 
tempted to think that he, like Dante, thought of the heavenly 
bodies in their spheres as the ministers and instruments of 
a Providence that had foreseen and ordained all things. 



IV. 1093-1099. 

2 Troilus and Criseyde, III. 617-620. 



Appendix 79 



APPENDIX 



I. Most of the terms at present used to describe the movements of 
the heavenly bodies were used in Chaucer's time and occur very fre- 
quently in his writings. The significance of Chaucer's references 
will then be perfectly clear, if we keep in mind that the modern 
astronomer's description of the apparent movements of the star-sphere 
and of the heavenly bodies individually would have been to Chaucer 
a description of real movements. 

When we look up into the sky on a clear night the stars and 
planets appear to be a host of bright dots on the concave surface, 
unimaginably distant, of a vast hollow sphere at the center of which 
we seem to be. Astronomers call this expanse of the heavens with its 
myriad bright stars the celestial sphere or the star sphere, and have 
imagined upon its surface various systems of circles. In descriptions 
of the earth's relation to the celestial sphere it is customary to disre- 
gard altogether the earth's diameter which is comparatively infinitesi- 
mal. 

If we stand on a high spot in the open country and look about 
us in all directions the earth seems to meet the sky in a circle which 
we call the terrestrial horizon. Now if we imagine a plane passing 
through the center of the earth and parallel to the plane in which 
the terrestrial horizon lies, and if we imagine this plane through the 
earth's center extended outward in all directions to an infinite dis- 
tance, it would cut the celestial sphere in a great circle which astron- 
omers call the celestial horizon. On the celestial horizon are the 
north, east, south and west points. The plane of the celestial horizon 
is, of course, different for different positions of the observer on the 
earth. 

If we watch the sky for some time, or make several observations 
on the same night, we notice, by observing the changing positions of 
the constellations, that the stars move very slowly across the blue 
dome above us. The stars that rise due east of us do not, in crossing 
the dome of the sky, pass directly over our heads but, from the 
moment that we first see them, curve some distance to the south, and, 
after passing their highest point in the heavens, turn toward the 
north and set due west. A star rising due east appears to move 
more rapidly than one rising some distance to the north or south of 
the east point, because it crosses a higher point in the heavens and 
has, therefore, a greater distance to traverse in the same length of 
time. When we observe the stars in the northern sky, we discover 
that many of them never set but seem to be moving around an 
apparently fixed point at somewhat more than an angle of 40 01 above 
the northern horizon and very near the north star. These are called 



x For Chaucer's locality, 45 



80 



Appendix 



circum-polar stars. The whole celestial sphere, in other words, ap- 
pears to be revolving about an imaginary axis passing through this 
fixed point, which is called the north pole of the heavens, through 
the center of the earth and through an invisible pole (the south pole 
of the heavens) exactly opposite the visible one. This apparent revo- 
lution of the whole star sphere, as we know, is caused by the earth's 
rotation on its axis once every twenty-four hours from west to east. 
Chaucer and his contemporaries believed it to be the actual revolution 
of the nine spheres from east to west about the earth as a center. 




i 



For determining accurately the position of stars on the celestial 
sphere astronomers make use of various circles which can be made 
clear by a few simple diagrams. In Figure 1, the observer is imagined 
to be at 0. Then the circle NESW is the celestial horizon, which we 
have described above. Z, the point immediately above the observer is 
called the zenith, and Z', the point immediately underneath, as indi- 
cated by a plumb line at rest, is the nadir. The line POP' is the 
imaginary axis about which the star-sphere appears to revolve, and 
P and P* are the poles of the heavens. The north pole P is elevated, 
for our latitude, at an angle of approximately 40° from the north 
point on the horizon. PP' is called the polar axis and it is evident 
that the earth's axis extended infinitely would coincide with this axis 
of the heavens. 

In measuring positions of stars with reference to the horizon 



Appendix 81 

astronomers use the following circles: Any great circle of the celes- 
tial sphere whose plane passes through the zenith and nadir is called 
a vertical circle. The verticle circle SPNZ', passing through the 
poles and meeting the horizon in the north and south points, N and 
S, is called the meridian circle, because the sun is on this circle at true 
mid-day. The meridian is the plane in which this circle lies. The 
vertical circle, EZ'WZ, whose plane is at right angles to the meridian, 
is called the prime vertical and it intersects the horizon at the east 
and west points, E and W. These circles, and the measurements of 
positions of heavenly bodies which involve their use, were all employed 
in Chaucer's time and are referred to in his writings. 1 

The distance of a star from the horizon, measured on a vertical 
circle, toward the zenith is called the star's altitude. A star reaches 
its greatest altitude when on the part of the meridional circle between 
the south point of the horizon, S, and the north pole, P. A star seen 
between the north pole and the north point on the horizon, that is, on 
the arc PN, must obviously be a circum-polar star and would have 
its highest altitude when between the pole and the zenith, or on the 
arc PZ. When a star reaches the meridian in its course across the 
celestial sphere it is said to culminate or reach its culmination. The 
highest altitude of any star would therefore be represented by the 
arc of the meridional circle between the star and the south point of 
the horizon. This is called the star's meridian altitude. 

The azimuth of a star is its angular distance from the south 
point, measured westward on the horizon, to a vertical circle passing 
through the star. The amplitude of a star is its distance from the 
prime vertical, measured on the horizon, north or south. 

For the other measurements used by astronomers in observations 
of the stars still other circles on the celestial sphere must be imag- 
ined. We know that the earth's surface is divided into halves, called 
the northern and southern hemispheres, by an imaginary circle called 
the equator, whose plane passes through the center of the earth and 
is perpendicular to the earth's axis. If the plane of the earth's 
equator were infinitely extended it would describe upon the celestial 
sphere a great circle which would divide that sphere into two hemi- 
spheres, just as the plane of the terrestrial equator divides the earth 
into two hemispheres. This great circle on the celestial sphere is 
called the celestial equator, or, by an older name, the equatorial, the 
significance of which we shall see presently. A star rising due east 
would traverse this great circle of the celestial sphere and set due 
west. The path of such a star is represented in Figure 2 by the great 
circle EMWM', which also represents the celestial equator. All stars 
rise and set following circles whose planes are parallel to that of the 

1. See the Astrolabe, i. 18, 19. Vertical circles are called azimuths 
by Chaucer. 



82 



Appendix 



celestial equator and these circles of the celestial sphere are smaller 
and smaller the nearer they are to the pole, so that stars very near 
the pole appear to be encircling it in very small concentric circles. 
Stars in an area around the north celestial pole, whose limits vary with 
the position of the observer never set for an observer in the northern 
hemisphere. There is a similar group of stars around the south pole 
for an observer in the southern hemisphere. 




The angle of elevation of the celestial equator to the horizon varies 
according to the position of the observer. If, for example, the obser- 
ver were at the north pole of the earth, the north celestial pole would 
be directly above him and would therefore coincide with the zenith; 
this would obviously make the celestial equator and the horizon also 
coincide. If the observer should pass slowly from the pole to the 
terrestrial equator it is clear that the two circles would no longer 
coincide and that the angle between them would gradually widen until 
it reached 90°. Then the zenith would be on the celestial equator 
and the north and south poles of the heavens would be on the horizon. 
We have still to define a great circle of the celestial sphere that 
is of equal importance with the celestial equator and the celestial 
horizon. This is the sun's apparent yearly path, or the ecliptic. We 
know that the earth revolves about the sun once yearly in an orbit 
that is not entirely round but somewhat eliptical. Now since the 
earth, the sun, and the earth's orbit around the sun are always in 
one plane, it follows that to an observer on the earth the sun would 



Appendix 83 

appear to be moving around the earth instead of the earth around 
the sun. The sun's apparent path, moreover, would be in the plane 
of the earth's orbit and when projected against the celestial sphere, 
which is infinite in extent, would appear as a great circle of that 
sphere. This great circle of the celestial sphere is the ecliptic. The 
sun must always appear to be on this circle, not only at all times 
of the year but at all hours of the day; for as the sun rises and sets, 
the ecliptic rises and sets also, since the earth's rotation causes an 
apparent daily revolution not only of the sun, moon, and planets 
but also of the fixed stars and so of the whole celestial sphere and 
of all the circles whose positions upon it do not vary. The ecliptic is 
inclined to the celestial equator approximately 23 % °, an angle which 
obviously measures the inclination of the plane of the earth's equator 
to the plane of its orbit, since the celestial equator and the ecliptic 
are great circles on the celestial sphere formed by extending the 
planes of the earth's equator and its orbit to an infinite distance. 
Since both the celestial equator and the ecliptic are great circles of 
the celestial sphere each dividing it into equal parts, it is evident 
that these two circles must intersect at points exactly opposite each 
other on the celestial sphere. These points are called the vernal and 
the autumnal equinoxes. 

We shall next define the astronomical measurements that corres- 
pond to terrestrial latitude and longitude. For some reason astrono- 
mers have not, as we might expect, applied to these measurements 
the terms 'celestial longitude' and 'celestial latitude.' These two 
terms are now practically obsolete, having been used formerly to 
denote angular distance north or south of the ecliptic and angular dis- 
tance measured east and west along circles parallel to the celiptic. The 
measurements that correspond in astronomy to terrestrial latitude and 
longitude are called declination and right ascension and are obviously 
made with reference to the celestial equator, not the ecliptic. For taking 
these measurements astronomers employ circles on the celestial sphere 
perpendicular to the plane of the celestial equator and passing through 
the poles of the heavens. These are called hour circles. The hour 
circle of any star is the great circle passing through it and perpen- 
dicular to the plane of the equator. The angular distance of a star 
from the equator measured along its hour circle, is called the star's 
declination and is northern or southern according as the star is in 
the northern or southern of the two hemispheres into which the plane 
of the equator divides the celestial sphere. It is evident that declina- 
tion corresponds exactly to terrestrial latitude. Right ascension, cor- 
responding to terrestrial longitude, is the angular distance of a 
heavenly body from the vernal equinox measured on the celestial 
equator eastward to the hour circle passing through the body. 

The hour angle of a star is the angular distance measured on 



84 



Appendix 



the celestial equator from the meridian to the foot of the hour circle 
passing through the star. 




Fig. 3 



It remains to describe in greater detail the apparent movements 
of the sun and the sun's effect upon the seasons. In Figure 3, the 
great circle MWM'E represents the equinoctial and XVX'A the 
ecliptic. The point X represents the farthest point south that the 
sun reaches in its apparent journey around the earth, and this point 
is called the winter solstice, because, for the northern hemisphere the 
sun reaches this point in mid-winter. When the sun is south of the 
celestial equator its apparent daily path is the same as it would be 
for a star so situated. Thus its daily path at the time of the winter 
solstice, about December 21, can be represented by the circle Xmn'. 
The arc gXh represents the part of the sun's path that would be 
above the horizon, showing that night would last much longer than 
day and the rays of the sun would strike the northern hemisphere 
of the earth more indirectly than when the sun is north of the 
equator. As the sun passes along the ecliptic from X toward V, the 



Appendix 85 

part of its daily path that is above the horizon gradually increases 
until at V, the vernal equinox, the sun's path would, roughly speak- 
ing, coincide with the celestial equator so that half of it would be 
above the horizon and half below and day and night would be of 
equal length. This explains why the celestial equator was formerly 
called the equinoctial (Chaucer's term for it). As the sun passes 
on toward X' its daily arc continues to increase and the days to 
grow longer until at X' it reaches its greatest declination north of 
the equator and we have the longest day, June 21, the summer 
solstice. When the sun reaches this point, its rays strike the northern 
hemisphere more directly than at any other time causing the hot or 
summer season in this hemisphere. Next the sun's daily arc begins 
to decrease, day and night to become more nearly equal, at A the 
autumnal equinox 1 is reached and the sun again shapes its course 
towards the point of maximum declination south of the equator. 
The two points of maximum declination are called solstices. 

The two small circles of the celestial sphere, parallel to the 
equator, which pass through the two points where the sun's declina- 
tion is greatest, are called Tropics; the one in the northern hemi- 
sphere is called the Tropic of Cancer, that in the southern hemisphere, 
the Tropic of Capricorn. They correspond to circles on the earth's 
surface having the same names. 

II. By "artificial day" Chaucer means the time during which the 
sun is above the horizon, the period from sunrise to sunset. The 
arc of the artificial day may mean the extent or duration of it, as 
measured on the rim of an astrolabe, or it may mean (as here), the 
arc extending from the point of sunrise to that of sunset. See 
Astrolabe ii.7. 

There has been some controversy among editors as to the correct- 
ness of the date occurring in this passage, some giving it as the 
28th instead of the 18th. In discussing the accuracy of the reading 
"eightetethe" Skeat throws light also upon the accuracy of the rest 
of the passage considered from an astronomical point of view. He 
says (vol. 5, p. 133) : 

"The key to the whole matter is given by a passage in Chau- 
cer's 'Astrolabe,' pt. ii, ch. 29, where it is clear that Chaucer (who, 
however merely translates from Messahala) actually confuses the 
hour-angle with the azimuthal arc (see Appendix I); that is, 
he considered it correct to find the hour of the day by noting the 
point of the horizon over which the sun appears to stand, and suppos- 
ing this point to advance, with a uniform, not a variable, motion. 
The host's method of proceeding was this. Wanting to know the 
hour, he observed how far the sun had moved southward along the 



^Strictly speaking, the equinoxes and solstices are each simply 
an instant of time. 



86 Appendix 

horizon since it rose, and saw that it had gone more than half-way 
from the point of sunrise to the exact southern point. Now the 
18th of April in Chaucer's time answers to the 26th of April at 
present. On April 26, 1874, the sun rose at 4 hr. 43 m., and set at 
7 hr. 12 m., giving a day of about 14 hr. 30 m., the fourth part of 
which is at 8 hr. 20 m., or, with sufficient exactness, at half past 
eight. This would leave a whole hour and a half to signify Chaucer's 
'half an houre and more', showing that further explanation is still 
necessary. The fact is, however, that the host reckoned, as has been 
said, in another way, viz. by observing the sun's position with 
reference to the horizon. On April 18 the sun was in the 6th degree 
of Taurus at that date, as we again learn from Chaucer's treatise. 
Set this 6th degree of Taurus on the east horizon on a globe, and it 
is found to be 22 degrees to the north of the east point, or 112 degrees 
from the south. The half of this at 56 degrees from the south; and 
the sun would seem to stand above this 56th degree, as may be seen 
even upon a globe, at about a quarter past nine; but Mr. Brae has 
made the calculation, and shows that it was at twenty minutes past 
nine. This makes Chaucer's 'half an houre and more' to stand for 
half an hour and ten minutes; an extremely neat result. But this 
we can check again by help of the host's other observation. He also 
took note, that the lengths of a shadow and its object were equal, 
whence the sun's altitude must have been 45 degrees. Even a globe 
v/ill shew that the sun's altitude, when in the 6th degree of Taurus, 
and at 10 o'clock in the morning, is somewhere about 45 or 46 de- 
grees. But Mr. Brae has calculated it exactly, and his result is, that 
the sun attained its altitude of 45 degrees at two minutes to ten 
exactly. This is even a closer approximation than we might expect, 
and leaves no doubt about the right date being the eighteenth of 
April." 

Thus it appears that Chaucer's method of determining the date 
was incorrect but his calculations in observing the sun's position were 
^uite accurate. For fuller particulars see Chaucer's Astrolabe, ed. 
Skeat (E. E. T. S.) preface, p. 1. 

III. It was customary in ancient times and even as late as Chau- 
cer's century to determine the position of the sun, moon, or planets at 
any time by reference to the signs of the zodiac. The zodiac is an 
imaginary belt of the celestial sphere, extending 8° on each side of 
the ecliptic, within which the orbits of the sun, moon, and planets 
appear to lie. The zodiac is divided into twelve equal geometric divi- 
sions 30° in extent called signs to each of which a fanciful name is 
given. The signs were once identical with twelve constellations along 
the zodiac to which these fanciful names were first applied. Since 
the signs are purely geometric divisions and are counted from the 
spring equinox in the direction of the sun's progress through them, 



Appendix 87 

and since through the precession of the equinoxes the whole series 
of signs shifts westward about one degree in seventy-two years, the 
signs and constellations no longer coincide. Beginning with the sign 
in which the vernal equinox lies the names of the zodiacal signs are 
Aries (Ram), Taurus (Bull), Gemini (Twins), Cancer (Crab), Leo 
(Lion), Virgo (Virgin), Libra (Scales), Scorpio (Scorpion), Sagit- 
tarius (Archer), Aquarius (Water-carrier), and Pisces (Fishes). 

In this passage, the line "That in the Ram is four degrees up- 
ronne" indicates the date March 16. This can be seen by reference 
to Figure 1 in Skeat's edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe (E. E. T. S.) 
The astrolabe was an instrument for making observations of the 
heavenly bodies and calculating time from these observations. The 
most important part of the kind of astrolabe described by Chaucer 
was a rather heavy circular plate of metal from four to seven inches 
in diameter, which could be suspended from the thumb by a ring 
attached loosely enough so as to allow the instrument to assume a 
perpendicular position. One side of this plate was flat and was 
called the back, and it is this part that Figure 1 represents. The back of 
the astrolabe planisphere contained a series of concentric rings repre- 
senting in order beginning with the outermost ring: the four quad- 
rants of a circle each divided into ninety degrees; the signs of the 
zodiac divided into thirty degrees each; the days of the year, the 
circle being divided, for this purpose, into 365V4, equal parts; the 
names of the months, the number of days in each, and the small 
divisions which represent each day, which coincide exactly with those 
representing the days of the year; and lastly the saints' days, with 
their Sunday-letters. The purpose of the signs of the zodiac is to 
show the position of the sun in the ecliptic at different times. There- 
fore, if we find on the figure the fourth degree of Aries and the day 
of the month corresponding to it, we have the date March 16 as 
nearly as we can determine it by observing the intricate divisions in 
the figure. 

The next passage "Noon hyer was he, whan she redy was" means 
evidently, 'he was no higher than this (i. e. four degrees) above the 
horizon when she was ready'; that is, it was a little past six. The 
method used in determining the time of day by observation of the 
sun's position is explained in the Astrolabe ii, 2 and 3. First the 
sun's altitude is found by means of the revolving rule at the back of 
the astrolabe. The rule, a piece of metal fitted with sights, is moved 
up and down until the rays of the sun shine directly through the 
sights. Then, by means of the degrees marked on the back of the 
astrolabe, the angle of elevation of the rule is determined, giving 
the altitude of the sun. The rest of the process involves the use of 
the front of the astrolabe. This side of the circular plate, shown in 
Fig. 2, had a thick rim with a wide depression in the middle. On the 



88 Appendix 

rim were three concentric circles, the first showing the letters A to 
Z, representing the twenty-four hours of the day, and the two inner- 
most circles giving the degrees of the four quadrants. The depressed 
central part of the front was marked with three circles, the 'Tropicus 
Cancri', the 'AEquinoctialis,' and the 'Tropicus Capricorn!'; and with 
the cross-lines from North to South, and from East to West. There 
were besides several thin plates or discs of metal of such a size as 
exactly to drop into the depression spoken of. The principal one of 
these was the 'Rete' and is shown in Fig. 2. "It consisted of a cir- 
cular ring marked with the zodiacal signs, subdivided into degrees, 
with narrow branching limbs both within and without this ring, 
having smaller branches or tongues terminating in points, each of 
which denoted the exact position of some well-known star. * * * 
The 'Rete' being thus, as it were, a skeleton plate, allows the 
'Tropicus Cancri,' etc., marked upon the body of the instrument, to 
be partially seen below it. * * * But it was more usual to 
interpose between the 'Rete' and the body of the instrument (called 
the 'Mother') another thin plate or disc, such as that in Fig. 5, so 
that portions of this latter plate could be seen beneath the skeleton- 
form of the 'Rete' (i. 17). These plates were called by Chaucer 
'tables', and sometimes an instrument was provided with several of 
them, differently marked, for use in places having different latitudes. 
The one in Fig. 5 is suitable for the latitude of Oxford (nearly). 
The upper part, above the Horizon Obliquus, is marked with circles 
of altitude (i. 18), crossed by incomplete arcs of azimuth tending 
to a common centre, the zenith (i. 19)." [Skeat, Introduction to the 
Astrolabe, pp. lxxiv-lxxv.l 

Now suppose we have taken the sun's altitude by §2 (Pt. ii of the 
Astrolabe) and found it to be 25%°. "As the altitude was taken by 
the back of the Astrolabe, turn it over, and then let the Rete revolve 
westward until the 1st point of Aries is just within the altitude-circle 
marked 25, allowing for the y 2 degree by guess. This will bring 
the denticle near the letter C, and the first point of Aries near X, 
which means 9 a. m." [Skeat's note on the Astrolabe ii. 3, pp. 189-190]. 

IV. Chaucer would know the altitude of the sun simply by inspec- 
tion of an astrolabe, without calculation. Skeat has explained this pas- 
sage in his Preface to Chaucer's Astrolabe (E. E. T. S.), p. lxiii, as 
follows : 

"Besides saying that the sun was 29° high, Chaucer says that 
his shadow was to his height in the proportion of 11 to 6. Changing 
this proportion, we can make it that of 12 to 6%i; that is, the 
point of the Umbra Versa (which is reckoned by twelfth parts) is 
6%i or 6y 2 nearly. (Umbra Recta and Umbra Versa were scales 
on the back of the astrolabe used for computing the altitudes of 
heavenly bodies from the height and shadows of objects. The umbra 



Appendix 89 

recta was used where the angle of elevation of an object was greater 
than 45°; the umbra versa, where it was less.) This can be verified 
by Fig. 1; for a straight edge, laid across from the 29th degree 
above the word 'Occidens,' and passing through the center, will cut 
the scale of Umbra Versa between the 6th and 7th points. The sun's 
altitude is thus established as 29° above the western horizon, beyond 
all doubt." 

V. Herberwe means 'position.' Chaucer says here, then, that the 
sun according to his declination causing his position to be low or 
high in the heavens, brings about the seasons for all living things. 
In the Astrolabe, i. 17, there is a very interesting passage explaining 
in detail, declination, the solstices and equinoxes, and change of sea- 
sons. Chaucer is describing the front of the astrolabe. He says: 
"The plate under thy rite is descryved with 3 principal cercles; of 
whiche the leste is cleped the cercle of Cancer, by-cause that the 
heved of Cancer turneth evermor consentrik up-on the same cercle. 
(This corresponds to the Tropic of Cancer on the celestial sphere, 
which marks the greatest northern declination of the sun.) In this 
heved of Cancer is the grettest declinacioun northward of the sonne. 
And ther-for is he cleped the Solsticioun of Somer; whiche declina- 
cioun, aftur Ptholome, is 23 degrees and 50 minutes, as wel in Can- 
cer as in Capricorne. (The greatest declination of the sun measures 
the obliquity of the ecliptic, which is slightly variable. In Chaucer's 
time it was about 23° 31', and in the time of Ptolemy about 23° 40'. 
Ptolemy assigns it too high a value.) This signe of Cancre is cleped 
the Tropik of Somer, of tropos, that is to seyn 'agaynward'; for 
thanne by-ginneth the sonne to passe fro us-ward. (See Fig. 2 in 
Skeat's Preface to the Astrolabe, vol. iii, or E. E. T. S. vol. 16.) 

The middel cercle in wydnesse, of thise 3, is cleped the Cercle 
Equinoxial (the celestial equator of the celestial sphere) ; up-on 
whiche turneth evermo the hedes of Aries and Libra. (These are 
the two signs in which the ecliptic crosses the equinoctial.) And 
understond wel, that evermo this Cercle Equinoxial turneth iustly 
fro verrey est to verrey west; as I have shewed thee in the spere 
solide. (As the earth rotates daily from west to east, the celestial 
sphere appears to us to revolve about the earth once every twenty- 
four hours from east to west. Chaucer, of course, means here that 
the equinoctial actually revolves with the primum mobile instead of 
only appearing to revolve.) This same cercle is cleped also the Weyere, 
equator, of the day; for whan the sonne is in the hevedes of Aries 
and Libra, than ben the dayes and the nightes ilyke of lengthe in al 
the world. And ther-fore ben thise two signes called Equinoxies. 

The wydeste of thise three principal cercles is cleped the Cercle 
of Capricorne, by-cause that the heved of Capricorne turneth evermo 
consentrix up-on the same cercle. (That is to say, the Tropic of 



90 Appendix 

Capricorn meets the ecliptic in the sign Capricornus, or, in other 
words, the sun attains its greatest declination southward when in the 
sign Capricornus.) In the heved of this for-seide Capricorne is the 
grettest declinacioun southward of the sonne, and ther-for is it cleped 
the Solsticioun of Winter. This signe of Capricorne is also cleped 
the Tropik of Winter, for thanne byginneth the sonne to come agayn 
to us-ward." 

VI. The moon's orbit around the earth is inclined at an angle 
of about 5° to the earth's orbit around the sun. The moon, there- 
fore, appears to an observer on the earth as if traversing a great 
circle of the celestial sphere just as the sun appears to do; and the 
moon's real orbit projected against the celestial sphere appears as a 
great circle similar to the ecliptic. This great circle in which the moon 
appears to travel will, therefore, be inclined to the ecliptic at an angle 
of 5° and the moon will appear in its motion never far from the eclip- 
tic; it will always be within the zodiac which extends eight or nine 
degrees on either side of the ecliptic. 

The angular velocity of the moon's motion in its projected great 
circle is much greater than that of the sun in the ecliptic. Both 
bodies appear to move in the same direction, from west to east; but 
the solar apparent revolution takes about a year averaging 1° daily, 
while the moon completes a revolution from any fixed star back to 
the same star in about 27 1 / 4 days, making an average daily angular 
motion of about 13°. The actual daily angular motion of the moon 
varies considerably; hence in trying to test out Chaucer's references to 
lunar angular velocity it would not be correct to make use only of 
the average angular velocity since his references apply to specific 
times and therefore the variation in the moon's angular velocity must 
be taken into account. 

VII. On the line "In two of Taur," etc., Skeat has the follow- 
ing note: "Tyrwhitt unluckily altered two to ten, on the plea that 
'the time (four days complete, 1. 1893) is not sufficient for the moon 
to pass from the second degree of Taurus into Cancer? And he 
then proceeds to shew this, taking the mean daily motion of the moon 
as being 13 degrees, 10 minutes, and 35 seconds. But, as Mr. Brae 
has shewn, in his edition of Chaucer's Astrolabe, p. 93, footnote, it 
is a mistake to reckon here the moon's mean motion; we must rather 
consider her actual motion. The question is simply, can the moon 
move from the 2nd degree of Taurus to the 1st of Cancer (through 
59 degrees) in four days? Mr. Brae says decidedly, that examples 
of such motion are to be seen 'in every almanac' 

For example, in the Nautical Almanac, in June, 1886, the moon's 
longitude at noon was 30° 22' on the 9th, and 90° 17' on the 13th; 
i. e., the moon was in the first of Taurus on the former day, and in 
the first of Cancer on the latter day, at the same hour; which gives 



Appendix 91 

(very nearly) a degree more of change of longitude than we here 
require. The MSS all have tivo or tuo, and they are quite right. The 
motion of the moon is so variable that the mean motion affords no 
safe guide." [Skeat, Notes to the Canterbury Tales, p. 363.] 

VIII. The moon's "waxing and waning" is due to the fact that 
the moon is not self-luminous but receives its light from the sun and 
to the additional fact that it makes a complete revolution around the 
earth with reference to the sun in 29y 2 days. When the earth is on 
the side of the moon that faces the sun we see the full moon, that is, 
the whole illuminated hemisphere. But when we are on the side of the 
moon that is turned away from the sun we face its unilluminated 
hemisphere and we say that we have a 'new moon.' Once in every 
29% days the earth is in each of these positions with reference to 
the moon and, of course, in the interval of time between these two 
phases we are so placed as to see larger or smaller parts of the 
illuminating hemisphere of the moon, giving rise to the other visible 
phases. 

When the moon is between the earth and the sun she is said to be in 
conjunction, and is invisible to us for a few nights- This is the phase 
called new moon. As she emerges from conjunction we see the moon 
as a delicate crescent in the west just after sunset and she soon sets 
below the horizon. Half of the moon's surface is illuminated, but we 
can see only a slender edge with the horns turned away from the 
sun. The crescent appears a little wider each night, and, as the moon 
recedes 13° further from the sun each night, she sets correspondingly 
later, until in her first quarter half of the illuminated hemisphere is 
turned toward us. As the moon continues her progress around the 
earth she gradually becomes gibbous and finally reaches a point in 
the heavens directly opposite the sun when she is said to be in 
opposition, her whole illumined hemisphere faces us and we have full 
moon. She then rises in the east as the sun sets in the west and is 
on the meridian at midnight. As the moon passes from opposition, 
the portion of her illuminated hemisphere visible to us gradually de- 
creases, she rises nearly an hour later each evening and in the morn- 
ing is seen high in the western sky after sunrise. At her third 
quarter she again presents half of her illuminated surface to us and 
continues to decrease until we see her in crescent form again. But 
now her position with reference to the sun is exactly the reverse of 
her position as a waxing crescent, so that her horns are now turned 
toward the west away from the sun, and she appears in the eastern 
sky just before sunrise. The moon again comes into conjunction and 
is lost in the sun's rays and from this point the whole process is 
repeated. 

IX. That the apparent motions of the sun and moon are not so 
complicated as those of the planets will be clear at once if we remem- 



92 



Appendix 



ber that the sun's apparent motion is caused by our seeing the sun 
projected against the celestial sphere in the ecliptic, the path cut out 
by the plane of the earth's orbit, while in the case of the moon, what 
we see is the moon's actual motion around the earth projected against 
the celestial sphere in the great circle traced by the moon's own orbital 
plane produced to an indefinite extent. These motions are further 
complicated by the rotation of the earth on its own axis, causing the 
rising and setting of the sun and the moon. These two bodies, 
however, always appear to be moving directly on in their courses, 
each completing a revolution around the earth in a definite time, 
the sun in a year, the moon in 29% days. What we see in the case 
of the planets, on the other hand, is a complex motion compounded 
of the effects of the earth's daily rotation, its yearly revolution around 
the sun, and the planets' own revolutions in different periods of time 
in elliptical orbits around the sun. These complex planetary motions 
are characterized by the peculiar oscillations known as 'direct' and 
'retrograde' movements. 




Fig. 8 t 



The motion of a planet is said to be direct when it moves in 
the direction of the succession of the zodiacal signs ; retrograde when 



Appendix 



93 



in the contrary direction. All of the planets have periods of retro- 
grade and direct motion, though their usual direction is direct, from 
west to east. Retrograde motion can be explained by reference to the 
accompanying diagrams. In Fig. 4, the outer circle represents the 
path of the zodiac on the celestial sphere. Let the two inner circles 
represent the orbits of the earth and an inferior planet, Venus, around 
the sun, at S. (An inferior planet is one whose orbit around the 
sun is within that of the earth. A superior planet is one whose orbit 
is outside that of the earth.) V, V and V", and E, E', and E" are 
successive positions of the two planets in their orbits, the arc VV" 
being longer than the arc EE" because the nearer a planet is to the 




F.d.s. 



sun, the greater is its velocity. Then when Venus is at V and the 
earth at E, v/e shall see Venus projected on the celestial sphere at V t . 
When Venus has passed on to V the earth will have passed to E' and 
we shall see Venus on the celestial sphere at V2. The apparent 
motion of the planet thus far will have been direct, from west to east 
in the order of the signs. But when Venus is at V" and the earth 
at E" Venus will be seen at V3 having apparently moved back about 
two signs in a direction the reverse of that taken at first. This is 
called the planet's retrograde motion. At some point beyond V", the 
planet will appear to stop moving for a very short period and then 
resume its direct motion. In Fig. 5, the outer arc again represents 



94 Appendix 

the path of the zodiac on the celestial sphere. The smaller arcs 
represent the orbits of the superior planet, Mars, and the earth 
around the sun, S. At the point of opposition of Mars (when Mars 
and the sun are at opposite points in the heavens to an observer on 
the earth) we should see Mars projected on the zodiac at M x . After 
a month Mars will be at M' and the earth at E', so that in its appar- 
ent motion Mars will have retrograded to M2. After three months 
from opposition Mars will be at M" and the earth at E", making 
Mars appear at M3 on the celestial sphere, its motion having changed 
from retrograde to direct. 

Both Figures 4 and 5 take no account of the fact that the earth's 
orbit and those of the planets are not in exactly the same planes. 
Remembering this fact we see at once that the apparent oscillations 
of the planets are not back and forth in a straight line but in curves 
and spirals. It is easy to see why the apparent motions of the 
planets were accounted for by deferents and epicycles, before the 
Copernican system revealed the true nature of the solar system as 
heliocentric and not geocentric. 






Selected Bibliography 95 



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Berry, Arthur, A Short History of Astronomy. New York. 1899. 

Bryant, W. W., A History of Astronomy. London. 1907. 

Cumont, Franz, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Rom- 
ans. New York. 1912. 

Cushman, H. E., A Beginner's History of Philosophy. Boston. 1910. 

Dreyer, J. L. E., History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to 
Kepler. Cambridge. 1906. 

EVERSHED, M. A., Dante and the Early Astronomers. London. 1913. 

Gomperz, T., Greek Thinkers, A History of Ancient Philosophy. New 
York. 1901. 

Gore J. Ellard, Astronomical Essays, Historical and Descriptive. 
London. 1907. 

Hinks, A. R., Astronomy. London. 1911. 

Jacoey, Harold, Astronomy. New York. 1913. 

Jastrow, Morris, "Astrology," Encyclopaedia Britannica ii, 795-800. 

Lea, H. C, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. New York. 
1906. III. 409-549. 

Orchard, T. N., Milton's Astronomy. New York. 1913. 

Taylor, H. O., The Mediaeval Mind. 2 vols. New York. 1911. 

Todd, Mabel L, 5 Steele's Popular Astronomy. New York. 1884. 

Traill, H. D., Social England. New York and London. 1902. 

Wallace, A. R., Man's Place in the Universe. London. 1903. 

White, A. D., Warfare of Science with Theology. New York and 
London. 1909. I. 381. 



Chaucer, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. W. W. Skeat, 
edit. Clarendon Press. 1894. 

^Jaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe, A. E. Brae, edit. London. 1870. 

nbridge History of English Literature, The, ed. by A. W. Ward 
and A. R. Waller. Vol. II. 1908. 

|Ten Brink, Bernard, History of English Literature. Vol. II. New 
York. 1893. 



96 Selected Bibliography 

Courthope, W. J., Literary History of the English People. Vol. I. 
New York. 1898. 

Hadow, Grace E., Chaucer and His Times. New York. 1914. 

Hammond, Eleanor P., Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual. New 
York. 1908. 

Jusserand, J. J., History of English Poetry. Vol. II. London. 1895. 

Kittredge, G. L., Chaucer and His Poetry. Harvard University Press. 
1915. 

Legouis, Emile, Geoffrey Chaucer. Trans, by L. Lailavoix. London. 
1913. 

Lounsbury, T. R., Studies in Chaucer. New York. 1892. 

Morley, Henry, English Writers. Vol. V. London. 1887 ff. 

Root, Robert K., The Poetry of Chaucer. Boston and New York. 190G. 

Tatlock, John S. P., "Astrology and Magic in Chaucer's Franklin's 
Tale." Kittredge Anniversary Papers. 1913. 

Tatlock, John S. P., The Scene of the Franklin's Tale Visited. 
Chaucer Society Publications. 1914. 




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Alma Hosic, A. M., The Comparison of Adjectives in the XIV and 
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Charles W. Wallace, Ph. D., The Children of the Chapel at Black- 
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H. B. Alexander, Ph. D., The English Lyric, a Study in Psycho- 
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Charles W. Wallace, Ph. D., Three London Theatres of Shakespeare's 
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Charles W. Wallace, Ph. D., Shakespeare and His London Associates 
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Mary Crawford, A. M., English Interjections in the XV Century. 
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